TAB Event - Kikuji Kawada "Memories of Faraway Places: Memoir 1951-1966"

Kikuji Kawada "Memories of Faraway Places: Memoir 1951-1966"

This event has ended.
At Photo Gallery International
Media: Photography

Kikuji Kawada has been creating his own photographic world for more than 50 years, attracting attention both in Japan and abroad. A series of work from 2006 entitled "Invisible City" includes photographs taken from 2001 to 2006. This is an imaginative document of various cities that are now crumbling, but promise to be reborn in the future. This series is closely related to "The Globe Theater", Kawada's great trilogy; it could also be said that Kawada's world of photography stems mainly from his well-known work "The Map" and "Sacré- Atavism".

What were Kawada’s beginnings in photography? Kawada mentions that "the start of phtography for me or the dawning of my early style was during the 15-year period from 1951 to 1966. Since then, half a century has passed since I made an agreement with the goddess of memory not to look back at my own works. The goddess Mnemosyne seems to whisper, 'often the late style is hidden within the early works,' and I also hear a voice that says 'we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.'"

"Just like looking through a pair of upside-down binoculars, a photograph that utilizes the laws of perspective found in the traditional Japanese art 'oshie' and trompe l’oeil suddenly turns itself into an awesome, life-sized living thing. Not only memories from the past, but also memories from the future lurking within. That is where the viewer can experience jamais vu and déjà vu, phenomena that travel beyond time and place," says Kawada.

Around 60 photographs from 1951-1966 are on display.