Book: Motoyuki Daifu, Project Family

JTF (just the facts): Published in 2013 by Dashwood Books (here and here). Softcover, 50 pages, with 35 color images. There are no texts or essays included. (Spread shots below.)

 

Comments/Context: Motoyuki Daifu's flash lit photographs of his overstuffed family apartment in Yokohama easily cross over into visual chaos. The place itself is filled to the brim with parents, brothers and sisters, laundry, dirty dishes, cats, and the ever multiplying clutter of daily life. His images take a diaristic look at life in these cramped quarters, using a loose snapshot aesthetic to capture the eye popping density of color and texture seemingly found in every direction. Stepping into this environment full of visual stimuli for even just a moment is a bit overwhelming.

The best images in this thin volume reduce the mess into barely controlled still lifes, where a sink overflowing with dishes, a kitchen table of condiments, or a pile of bagged garbage and recycling turns into an overlapping riot of bright color. In these works, the jumbled too muchness of the stuff fills the frame to the breaking point. Other photographs introduce family members into this busy world, where open mouthed sleepers lie sprawled amid the debris and a snatched bowl of noodles offers a fleeting moment of peace. Daifu's photographs of his siblings add a sliver of surreal humor to the proceedings: three full-mouthed teenagers stare in the same direction with stunning similarity and the seemingly rolled back eyes of a brother punctuate tooth brushing and the face down passed out end of a meal. Even in all this claustrophobic, right-on-top-of-it chaos, there is a surprising amount of quiet tolerance and easy going joy.

Part of the charm of this book is its endearing warmth; the glare of Daifu's flash never turns harsh or particularly critical. (This was also true of his last project, Lovesody, reviewed here.) Rather than turn these pictures into pared down formal exercises, he has embraced the rush of cacophonous energy found in his home and let it run free. His photographs reject the entire notion of deadpan observation, and instead bring some low key personality back into the artistic discussion.

Collector’s POV: Motoyuki Daifu is represented by Lombard-Freid Projects in New York (here). His work has not yet reached the secondary markets with any regularity, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Feature: American Photo (here)

 

Motoyuki Daifu, Lovesody @Lombard-Freid

JTF (just the facts): A total of 25 color works (22 single images and 3 diptychs), framed in white and unmatted, and hung in the main gallery space. All of the works are c-prints taken in 2011. The prints come in three sizes: 14x17, 20x24, and 30x40 (or reverse), all in editions of 10. The diptychs are made up of 11x14 or 20x24 photographs. There are 7 small images, 11 medium sized images, and 4 large images in the show, plus the 3 diptychs. A monograph of this body of work was published in 2011 by Little Big Man (here) and is available from the gallery for $75. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The history of photography is filled with photographers and their muses: Stieglitz, Strand, Callahan, Gowin, the list goes on and on. Motoyuki Daifu follows in these weighty footsteps, making affectionate pictures of a young single mother during her pregnancy and the subsequent birth of her second child. He is undeniably smitten with his subject, and his playful images feel like snapshots from an intimate family album. While the infatuation only lasted six months, the warm energy of his crush lives on in the pictures.

These are casual images, unconstrained by typical Japanese formality and societal control. The young mother shows off her pregnant belly flanked by a pile of garbage bags, hangs up laundry and Hello Kitty baby blankets in the cramped bedroom, cooks a meal wearing only a towel (exposing her bare bottom), and takes a bath with her son in the tub. Half eaten toast, cigarette ashes in a plastic Winnie the Pooh bowl, leftover breakfast dishes, and a tornado of discarded toys decorate her small chaotic apartment. His images of her wander between the trials of motherhood (breastfeeding, exhaustion, crying children) and the reality of her attractiveness (clutching a microphone on the floor of a karaoke room or splayed suggestively on a mattress). Whatever she does, he finds it cute and endearing.

Even though many of these photographs seem quick and ephemeral, quite a few capture a surprising depth of emotion. He is enamored, charmed, and thoroughly fascinated by this woman, and his fondness has the ring of authenticity. We're voyeurs taking in the action second hand, but Daifu's charged atmosphere is a vivid reminder of the spellbound state of young love.
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Collector's POV: The photographs in this show are priced as follows. The unframed single images are priced based on size: the 14x17 prints are $1000, the 20x24 prints are $1600, and the 30x40 prints are $3000. The unframed prices of the diptychs are also based on component size: the works made up of 11x14 prints are $1800 and those made up of 20x24 prints are $3200. Daifu's photographs have not yet entered the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Features: PhotoBooth (here), W (here)

Motoyuki Daifu, Lovesody
Through March 3rd

Lombard-Freid Projects
518 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10001

Cao Fei: Play Time @Lombard-Freid

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 works, displayed in the main gallery space, the back alcove, and on the outdoor terrace. There are 8 photographic works on view: 2 single image c-prints, framed in blond wood and not matted, each 35x47 in editions of 10, from 2011, and 6 c-print diptychs, framed in blond wood and not matted, each print 24x32, also in editions of 10, from 2011. The show also includes 2 single channel color videos with sound (one on a small flat screen, the other projected on an entire wall), both from 2011, 1 wooden tabletop sculpture, from 2011, and one garden installation. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In a relatively short span of time, Cao Fei has cemented her artistic position at the nexus of pop and youth culture, expanding how we experience and think about new trends and online communities. In recent projects, she has explored the virtual world of Second Life and documented cosplayers in the context of day-to-day China. This show continues this line of experimentation, remaking recognizable children's TV characters and simple games by playing with the edges of reality and fantasy and adding in layers of subtle social commentary.

All of the photographs in this show come from the PostGarden series, where candy colored characters (the CBeebies from the BBC) have left their idyllic world and now travel through muddy dirt piles, highway underpasses, and smoking wastelands. Her images capture the stuffed figures escaping across an open field, pushing a shopping cart, living in a tent camp, and digging a grave for their dead father. The works are like a fairy tale gone bad, where honest simplicity and trusting innocence unexpectedly meet difficult reality. Many of the images are actually diptychs with an I Spy game built in, where the paired works have a handful of differences the viewer is supposed to try and spot. Even though this feels a little gimmicky, the technique definitely encourages a close inspection of the details, reinforcing just how odd the whole narrative structure really is.

A similar cartoon character device is used in one of the short videos, where the jaunty smile of Thomas the Tank Engine is grafted onto the front of a dusty truck hauling grimy trash and construction debris across town to the city dump; fun childhood adventures have been exchanged for ugly, mind numbing work. A second video uses silhouetted hand puppets to play out clever shadow stories with dark undertones and ominous political undercurrents.

In all of these works, things are not what they seem, and innocent cartoon symbols have been taken out of context, creating an entirely different "play" experience. Depending on your level of jadedness and sarcasm, it's alternately sharply satirical and and sadly dispiriting to see these bouncing happy characters endure the harsh realities life has to dish out. In Cao Fei's works, the soft, warm glow of these fantasy worlds has been drained away, leaving behind something more complicated and much less easily interpreted.

Collector's POV: The photographic works in this show are priced as follows. The 35x47 single images are $13200 each (framed); the diptychs are also $13200 each (framed). Cao Fei's work has only recently begun to enter the secondary markets, mostly in Asian Contemporary Art sales. As such, gallery retail is still likely the best option for interested collectors at this point.

If you don't have an 11 year old boy in your house (like we do), you likely won't have any idea what a Tech Deck is (it's a small hand held replica skateboard that can be manipulated with your fingers). But if you can identify this trendy toy, I can absolutely guarantee that Cao Fei's laminated wood miniature skatepark is the single most kid friendly artwork that you will see in a gallery this year. It combines various architectural features with ramps and rails, coming together in a dense tabletop extravaganza that will make your child's eyes light up; don't enjoy it too much, or you'll be off the lumberyard cursing yourself as you try and recreate it.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Artist site (here)
• Review: NY Times (here)

Cao Fei: Play Time
Through June 25th

Lombard-Freid Projects
518 West 19th Street
New York, NY 10001