Yoichiro Nishimura "Asteroid"
Minnano Gallery
Starts 6/4
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Artists
Yoichiro Nishimura
Yoichiro Nishimura is a photographer whose practice centers on photogram—an image-making technique that records objects through direct exposure without the use of a camera—and scangram, its digital extension. Through motifs such as plants, water, insects, and the human body, he captures elements from everyday life while introducing subtle shifts in how they are seen. The year 2026 marks forty years since Nishimura began his photographic practice, as well as ten years since the publication of Blue Flower (2016), a photobook dedicated to his scangram works. This exhibition is structured with an awareness of that accumulated time.
Included in the exhibition is Asteroid (1989), a photographic work first presented when Nishimura was selected for 20 Promising Photographers (PARCO Gallery) in 1990. The work points to the origin of a way of seeing that has continued to the present: a small yet decisive world embedded within the most familiar of subjects. That sensibility runs consistently through his current practice. The exhibition also brings together works made through photogram and scangram, spanning from pieces produced around twenty years ago to recent works. What appears in these images are beings and materials that populate our daily environment—plants, insects, aquatic life, and artificial objects. Yet their presence in the photographs differs from how we ordinarily perceive them.
The darkroom in photogram, the scanner in scangram—each forms a closed environment, almost like a chamber, in which the subject and the photographer confront one another. Through light and time, a quiet exchange unfolds, and the latent state of the subject gradually emerges. How does Nishimura encounter these subjects in his daily life? And why do we fail to notice them?
As one response, the exhibition presents a slideshow of the vast number of snapshots Nishimura has taken with his smartphone. Continuously published on the gallery’s website, these images reflect the rhythm of his daily life and suggest how such encounters take place. Nishimura’s photographs remain continuous with our everyday world, yet they contain what has often gone unnoticed. These are not extraordinary subjects, but things that exist constantly at our feet.
As photographer Daido Moriyama has described, Nishimura’s images evoke “a journey into a sensual, alluring microcosm.” They possess the capacity to transform fragments of reality into images that appear almost dreamlike.
Meanwhile, photography critic Kotaro Iizawa situates Nishimura's practice within the historical lineage of photogram, recognizing it as an attempt to connect the origin and the future of photography as a medium. Nishimura’s work engages with the origins of photography while opening new possibilities for vision along its extension. This exhibition offers an opportunity to reconsider his forty-year practice from a contemporary perspective.
Included in the exhibition is Asteroid (1989), a photographic work first presented when Nishimura was selected for 20 Promising Photographers (PARCO Gallery) in 1990. The work points to the origin of a way of seeing that has continued to the present: a small yet decisive world embedded within the most familiar of subjects. That sensibility runs consistently through his current practice. The exhibition also brings together works made through photogram and scangram, spanning from pieces produced around twenty years ago to recent works. What appears in these images are beings and materials that populate our daily environment—plants, insects, aquatic life, and artificial objects. Yet their presence in the photographs differs from how we ordinarily perceive them.
The darkroom in photogram, the scanner in scangram—each forms a closed environment, almost like a chamber, in which the subject and the photographer confront one another. Through light and time, a quiet exchange unfolds, and the latent state of the subject gradually emerges. How does Nishimura encounter these subjects in his daily life? And why do we fail to notice them?
As one response, the exhibition presents a slideshow of the vast number of snapshots Nishimura has taken with his smartphone. Continuously published on the gallery’s website, these images reflect the rhythm of his daily life and suggest how such encounters take place. Nishimura’s photographs remain continuous with our everyday world, yet they contain what has often gone unnoticed. These are not extraordinary subjects, but things that exist constantly at our feet.
As photographer Daido Moriyama has described, Nishimura’s images evoke “a journey into a sensual, alluring microcosm.” They possess the capacity to transform fragments of reality into images that appear almost dreamlike.
Meanwhile, photography critic Kotaro Iizawa situates Nishimura's practice within the historical lineage of photogram, recognizing it as an attempt to connect the origin and the future of photography as a medium. Nishimura’s work engages with the origins of photography while opening new possibilities for vision along its extension. This exhibition offers an opportunity to reconsider his forty-year practice from a contemporary perspective.
Schedule | Jun 4 (Thu) 2026-Jun 21 (Sun) 2026 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.minnanogallery.com/yoichiro-nishimura-asteroid | ||||
| Venue | Minnano Gallery https://www.minnanogallery.com/ | ||||
| Location | 2F, 4-14-3 Higashi Ueno, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0015 | ||||
| Access | 3 minute walk from the Iriya exit of JR Ueno Station, 5 minute walk from exit 3 at Inari-cho Station on the Ginza line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6268-9658 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it  |
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