Japan Today @Amador

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of a total of 33 black and white and color photographs from 3 photographers. The front gallery space contains the work of Taiji Matsue and Mikiko Hara. Hara's works are square format type c prints from the series Hysteric Thirteen, each 14x14 and framed in white with white mats, printed in editions of 10. The 8 images on view were made between 1996 and 2005. Matsue's works are type c prints, 20x24 and framed in white with white mats, printed in editions of 5. The 8 images on view from the JP-22 series were all made in 2005; a single image from the Cell series is also on display; it is an 18x18 digital type c print, available in an edition of 15. The back gallery contains 16 images by Osamu Kanemura. All of these works are gelatin silver prints, each 20x24 and framed in black with no mat, printed in editions of 5. 7 of the works come from the 1995 series Today's Japan; the other 9 works come from the 2007 series My Name is Shockhammer. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: In the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, there have been countless efforts to provide support, assistance and awareness to the people suffering through the devastation. In reaction to the events on the ground, this show gathers together the work of three contemporary Japanese photographers from the gallery's stable and provides a pre-disaster view of Japan in the last decade.

The exhibit begins with the pared down aerial photographs of Taiji Matsue. Taken from a helicopter, these images document a single Japanese province, capturing details from urban and factory zones, wide expanses of agriculture, and deep blue areas of water. At these heights, pure abstraction reigns, with grids of city streets and rectangular buildings boiled down to rigid geometries. Rice paddies are cut into angular forms, often covered in tiny stripes of green. And the immensity of the sea is dotted with minuscule kayaks and strips of fishing traps, or decorated by lines of cut logs gathered in perfect alignment like matchsticks. There is a strong sense of order and organization in these pictures, of a people efficiently managing the land. The best are those that take some time to decipher; when the subjects become too obvious (like the golf course), the images lose a bit of their power to startle.

Osamu Kanemura's black and white images get down into the crowded infrastructure of Tokyo city streets, where tangles of overhead wires clash with architectural geometries and neon signage. His photographs have a dark compactness, a sense of overlapping, constricting tightness, where the shadowy layers of the city pile one upon another, creating narrow alleyways and overwhelming mazes. There is something wonderful about Kanemura's messiness, where visual ideas intrude on each other like an unruly brawl.

Mikiko Hara's color photographs go yet another level deeper, finding women in moments of uncertainty in the subways and on the streets. Isolated women stand in long lines, buy tickets, wait for trains, and linger on sidewalks, their everyday narratives open ended and ambiguous. Gazes are averted, gestures are muted, and the scenes are unknowable. What seem at first glance like simple snapshots are found to have a deeper sense of mystery, a nagging undercurrent of tension lurking just beneath the surface. The more I looked at these images, the more they seemed to have to offer, if only in my imagination.

Overall, this show provides three markedly different perspectives on contemporary Japan: the cleaned-up, orderly perfection from the air, the tumultuous ferment of the city, and the weary uncertainty of the inhabitants. It's a diverse and thoughtful combination, creating a multi-faceted portrait of the time before the storm.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The Kanemura images are either $2500 or $3000, based on the series the image is from. The Hara images are either $2500 or $3000. The Matsue images are either $4000 or $5000, and the single image from the Cell series is $2500. The work of these three photographers has not been widely available in the secondary markets, so gallery retail is likely the only option for interested collectors at this point.

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I have long thought that a dense, chaotic Kanemura would make a good addition to our city/industrial genre, and this show was a good reminder of how just many of his images would fit neatly into our collection. With so many solid choices, we'll need to invest some time in looking through all the images from the various series to select one with the right balance of complex skewed angles.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)
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Transit Hub:

• Reviews: New Yorker (here), DART (here), Woman Around Town (here)

Japan Today

Through June 30th
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Amador Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022

Taiji Matsue, Nest @Cohen Amador

JTF (just the facts): 5 large color C prints (50x60) from the "Nest" series and 12 smaller color C prints (19x19) from the "Cell" series, all from 2008 and in editions of 5, shown throughout the gallery (installation shot of the "Cell" series at right).

Comments/Context: Taiji Matsue is a technologist. I say this not because he uses digital capture and Photoshop, because even the Luddites among us are doing these things in today's world. No, Matsue's work and underlying approach seem to stem from a comfort with and genuine interest in technology: in computer programming, display electronics, and cartography, and how these technologies are related to the process of image making.

We first became aware of Matsue's work a year or so ago when Paul Amador showed us several of his black and white city scenes and landscapes. In both sets of work, the surfaces are flattened out, the horizon is cropped out, the camera angle is from above or aerial, and the textures are brought into sharp focus. The traditional landscapes (if you can call them that) are very reminiscent of Frederick Sommer's shimmering shots of the desert. The urban landscapes are low contrast, topographical studies, with windows and buildings used to highlight the interlocking patterns and repetitions. These have some echoes of Lewis Baltz, or perhaps 1970s Harry Callahan.

The work in this new show builds on these earlier themes and introduces the elements of color and larger/smaller scale. The "Nest" project is derived from an idea from computer programming: the concept of nesting subroutines, allowing a programmer to build a hierarchy of detail that is called only when necessary. The "Nest" images are large images with a huge amount of detail, "hyper real" you might call them. These are works that can be taken in on one level from 10 feet, and then can be engaged intimately at the same level of sharpness right up close (think Clifford Ross). This "feature" of the pictures creates a feeling of drifting in and out, as you move up and down the scale of magnification. They're a little like playing with Google Earth, zooming in and out. The subject matter and general approach is the same as the earlier work: landscapes and urban studies, with the same cropping and camera angles, once again focused on patterns that are enhanced by this staggering level of detail.

The "Cell" series evolve these same concepts in another direction (perhaps derived from microprocessor or display architectures, or simply from spreadsheets or maps). In these images, Matsue has taken one of his standard size images and "discovered" one single "cell" 1/200th of the size of the overall negative, and then blown this small area up into a larger work. Up close, the effect is that the images are pixelated, with almost Pointillist dots of grainy color making up the magnified images. The subjects seem like ants shot from the moon (what are these tiny little people doing?).

While all of this is interesting at a technical level, the question is whether it is durable art. I found a few of the "Nest" images, particularly Leon, Mexico, to work quite well, the hive of small buildings and colors creating an all over pattern that was mesmerizing. Others in the series were less effective, and while I got the point he was making, the images weren't as compelling, or perhaps seemed too reminiscent of the work of other artists. Of the "Cell" series, overall, I found the texture and graininess of the images intriguing, as the subject matter was broken down into points of color. Again, I think there were a few winners, and a decent number of more average examples.

There is a two part interview with Taiji Matsue in conjunction with this exhibit to be found at Modern Art Obsession, here and here. Matsue's new book, Cell, is also available.

Collector's POV: Matsue's "Nest" images are being sold between $7500 and $11500 and the smaller "Cell" works are between $2000 and $4500. Since we have virtually no color in our personal collection, one of Matsue's earlier works (likely an urban landscape) would fit better for us. That said, I think there are a handful of memorable pieces here that would be worth adding to your collection, especially in the context of considering how technology (as a mindset rather than as a tool) is influencing the photography of the 21st century.

Rating: * (1 star) GOOD (rating scale described here)

Taiji Matsue, Nest
Through December 31

Cohen Amador Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York, NY 10022