A PRIVATE HISTORY @ photography.dk

Mikiko Hara
Masanori Ikeda
Kumi Oguro
Ryudai Takano

September 29th - December 21st 2007

The Fotografisk Center is proud to present 'A Private History', an exhibition with four japanese photographers that have been making waves on the Japanese art scene these last few years:
Mikiko Hara, Ryudai Takano, Masanori Ikeda og Kumi Oguro. They have each in their own way created significant and personal bodies of work by focusing on things that are close to their own heart, be it memory, passion, everyday things or the personal story - the individual state of mind is portrayed and we sense the here and now of contemporary Japanese life.

Mikiko Haras photographs are essences of the frustrations and beauty in the everyday. An old Rolleiflex hangs habitually around her neck, almost a bodily extension. She photographs that which captures her eye. An unknown woman's introverted glance on a rush hour Tokyo train, a young couple on a bench, or the light falling on her daughters kimono. From these photographs she composes scenarios that combine portraits of the city's inhabitants with descriptions from her own life as a mother of three living in a Tokyo suburb.

Masanori Ikeda. We see a girl in a room dressed in a kimono, sitting composed in front of a bookshelf. On the shelves are neatly arranged loves of bread. The scene is obscure and surrealistic. Masanori Ikeda's father was a studio photographer and he grew up having close contact with conventional studio photography. With the series ' A Photo studio of a Holiday' Ideka uses the photo studios conventions in a new way and creates a funny and distorted scenario in which both the character of humans and objects are revealed and staged.

Kumi Oguro creates photographs that makes the viewer think of that which is beyond what is visible. A fragment of a persons body is shown - a lock of hair, hands that almost meet or feet dragging themselves across a floor. At the same time an event is suggested - a before and after that never is revealed. The staged photographs are organic and sensuous, emotionally revealing though clouded in mystery.

Takano Ryudai always meets his male nude models through his friends and photographs them in his own home. He exposes their self-stagedness and combines with his own desire in an open and honest sensibility. At the same time the distance between photographer and model, who pose in an almost feminine beauty, is apparent and is that which supports and completes the scene. We sense the meeting that took place beforehand, and a shyness slowly broken down.

The exhibition is curated by Miriam Nielsen in co-operation with Hiromi Nakamura, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

The exhibition has received support from The Danish Arts Council, The Toyota Foundation and The Japan Foundation.

Opening Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11.00 - 17.00

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