"Street Life" Exhibition
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
This event has ended.
This exhibition showcases the tradition of social documentary photography that emerged in England, Germany and France between the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Unlike the American documentary tradition, European documentary photography tended to focus on the attempt to leave behind a record of urban scenes and patterns of life that were fast disappearing from European cities in the face of rapid modernization.
Media
Schedule
From 2011-12-10 To 2012-01-29
Closed for winter holidays from December 29th - January 1st, Closed on January 4th
Reviews
Thomas Annan, John Thomson have taken street pictures documenting life of common people in the 19th century. One thing is really striking when you already know some of the spaces shown in the photos. There are no cars. None. Not even horse carts. What is the voice of a city without cars ? Most of the people were walking, could not own a horse cart. And the visual pattern of the streets is taking also a very different nature. The long rainbow of cars parked in our streets today make for an ugly view.
What if we could make the cars disappear.
The exhibition becomes more interesting if we give it a sense of now. I could imagine the picture of deserted streets from this Japanese photographers, and also photos of bustling streets side by side with the ones of these photographers.