Review by Rudy Vega • Japan is a country of four distinct seasons. Hot, humid and rainy summers followed by mild pleasant autumn complete with fall colors. Then winter sets in for four months of frigid cold snowy weather. But with the arrival of spring comes renewal as symbolized by the cherry blossoms or Sakura as... Continue Reading →
Paula Riff: works on paper
Review by Wayne Swanson • Earlier this year, we lost a photographic artist with a truly unique vision when Paula Riff succumbed to cancer. Yet this diminutive Los Angeles artist with an outsized personality left us with a beautiful gift, finished just months before her death. Paula Riff: works on paper, like the artist herself, is... Continue Reading →
Nobuyoshi Araki and Juergen Teller – Leben und Tod (Life and Death)
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Mutual admiration between two photographers can be extraordinary, especially when it stimulates new work and when it happens across cultures. Even more important, this universal theme of life and death leaves no one untouched. Nobuyoshi Araki had seen Juergen Teller’s project Leben und Tod including pictures of his grieving mother... Continue Reading →
Lukasz Rusznica – Subterranean River
Review by Douglas Stockdale • What might occur when one decides to investigate something very foreign that is additionally complicated by the fact it is also an unseen entity? The Polish photographer Lukasz Rusznica took on this slightly impossible task when he ventured to Japan with the hope of revealing the spirit of kami, the Japanese... Continue Reading →
Satoshi Hirano – Reconstruction. Shibuya, 2014 – 2018
Review by Rudy Vega • Satoshi Hirano’s Reconstruction documents the large-scale redevelopment of Tokyo’s Shibuya station. Reconstruction is the culmination of a photography project Hirano pursued from 2014 to 2018. Portraying a nocturnal view, Hirano provides an insider’s look to the ongoing expansion of the station, offering the viewer access that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible... Continue Reading →
Yukari Chikura – Zaido
Review by Douglas Stockdale • A dream in which a deceased father speaks words of inspiration to his daughter, who, now inspired visits a snowy village in which her father was born and lived long ago in the north of Japan. Upon her arrival she is confronted by an ancient performance of Zaido, said to be... Continue Reading →
Liam Wong – TO:KY:OO
Review by Rudy Vega • When one picks up this new photobook by Liam Wong and starts to peruse its pages, one immediately recognizes it to be unique and out of the ordinary. The project disrupts the traditional photobook paradigm with its liberal use of colored pages to host images, while the text portions throughout... Continue Reading →
Pixy Liao – Experimental Relationship Vol.1 (2007–2017)
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook was more than ten years in the making, and it is an engrossing experience for the viewers as well. Pixy and Moro are a young couple somewhat less predictably matched, if one goes by social expectations – she is five years older than he is; she is of... Continue Reading →
Katherine Longly – To Tell My Real Intentions, I Want to Eat Haze Like a Hermit
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Food. For some a real love - hate relationship. For others it's just basic fuel to keep the carbon bio-mass moving that day. It's a complex subject with volumes written about it each year; from describing the preparation of complex epicurean delights to the many ways to manage a diet... Continue Reading →
Paweł Jaszczuk – Everything You Do Is A Balloon
Photographer: Paweł Jaszczuk (born in Warsaw, Poland; lives and works in Warsaw and Tokyo, Japan) Publisher: Lieutenant Willsdorff, Bordeaux, France, © 2016 Essay: Sophie Knight Text: English Hard cover with sewn binding and black nylon hosiery wrapper; four-color offset printing; 74 pages, not numbered; 44 images; 6x9 inches; printed in Poland by Drukarnia Klimiuk, Warsaw... Continue Reading →