Tokyo Photo 2009 in as much as it was interesting didn’t tend to overwhelm one senses even though within it there is some excellent exhibits. One hopes that in visiting many of these big art events there is a certain significant visual punch to the memory to be had and that shakes the audience out of visual compliancy or the acceptance of just glancing at a photograph or painting.
At Tokyo Photo 2009 for example, many of the photographs remained within a comfortable certain format, easy on the eye with very little of large format images to be seen, let’s say over 2m x 2m. The other issue is content of imagery that one might find hard to hang on house wall, like the poor of Japan sleeping in cardboard boxes that one sees consistently around Japan nowadays with all the cities grime attached to their being, it was like the smell of humanity was sterilized out of the exhibition except for a few pockets of critical fine art resistance.
Gallery Sho (there were others but for arguments sake I have used them) is a kind of signifier in a way as to what critical fine art photography may well presents itself to an audience, against the lack of imagery that wasn’t taxing or pulling at ones senses. For example, at Gallery Sho there was series in your face nude erotic women by Helmut Newton, Guido Argentini and David Stetson followed by a strange series of what might call a series of sinister events, not quite definable or revealing to the viewer but one understood clearly that what was taking place here wasn’t good. These were images that taxed the viewer on several issues of censorship and morality.
There were some memorable images though as evidenced in Yuhki Touyama’s photograph titled; 2009 of a forlorn or abandoned figure sitting on a bed naked but not resting, just there, lost in the misery of the moment in a darkened room, the air of the image is dense with melancholy and sadness. It’s about as near as sensing someone’s misery in photography as one gets.
Also on show with Tokyo Photo 2009 is Photo American Tokyo 2009 and the best of these were the ethnographic photographs from early in the nineteenth century, as evidenced by Alfred Stieglitz’s photograph titled: Katherine being of a young girl with a frozen gaze back at the camera in the now from a centuries old moment long ago which makes a timeless haunting photograph.
Also there is Edward Sheriff Curtis portrait photographs of American Indians at the turn of last century, these tend to make the audience of inquire into culture lost and raises the questions as to why these cultural catastrophes still happen.
Tokyo Photo 2009 is an interesting snapshot as to what is happening now but raises questions about contemporary photography and is it really presenting itself as critically as the media has throughout its own formidable history so if you’re in Tokyo do try to make it this show.
Tokyo Photo link
http://tokyophoto.org/
Link to Gallery Sho
http://tokyophoto.org/en/exhibitor_galerieshocontemporaryart.html#5
Link to Yuhki Touyama
http://gptokyo.jp/
