VORTEX
OPENING RECEPTION | January 30, 6:30PM - 8:00PM
GALLERY HOURS | Thu.–Sat. 11:00–13:00, 14:00–19:00
CLOSED | Sun–Wed., National Holidays
Fragmentary images appearing one after another on the boundary between reality and non-reality. Swallowed up in their vortex, I am no longer able to escape from it.
– from the artist’s statement
Akio Nagasawa Gallery Aoyama is pleased to announce the opening of Takamoto Yamauchi’s exhibition “VORTEX.”
Takamoto Yamauchi was born in 1972 in Osaka, Japan. He studied photography in Chicago, USA, and is presently based in Tokyo, where he vigorously engages in creative work in addition to his main profession as a medical doctor. Featured in this exhibition are a number of black and white photographs that strongly echo the deeper layers of the human psyche – one of the most prominent characteristics of Yamauchi’s photographic work at large. All items on display are new and previously unseen.
In connection with the exhibition, Yamauchi’s newest photo book VORTEX will be published by CASE PUBLISHING. Comprising shots selected from a total of 30,000 photographs made in the past, the book can be understood as a definitive introduction to Yamauchi’s recent work. It will be available in a limited edition at the exhibition venue and from the online shop.
We are looking forward to your visit.
Artist
Takamoto YAMAUCHI
山内貴元
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1972. He focused on person's unconscious world in in-depth psychology. In 2014 he started to take photographs again in Tokyo. He traveled and photographed in Tokyo, Osaka, Italy, Denmark and Korea. He made "from dusk". "From dusk" won the first prize in Onaeba. "from dusk" was published in 2014.
Publication
Till Dawn
Everybody carries some psychological pain in their mind or heart, some more of it, some less.
There are many who cannot escape from it.
For me, there is nothing I can do but take their photos. I cannot save them, and I cannot be saved.
This is a story about the pain of my mother, my sister, my girlfriend, of my pain and that of the women I have encountered.
— Takamoto Yamauchi
Using two types of black ink, the photos that make up this work as well as the cover surrounding it have been printed on Japan’s finest ultra high-gloss paper.
The end paper has been printed in three colors (two types of black ink, one silver), on jet-black paper even darker than the ink, giving the impression of a tonally inversed print.
The book was bound traditionally, using EVA (ethylene vinyl acetate). As a result, the pages can never quite be fully opened, with opposite pages reflecting the content of each other, hopefully pulling their reader even deeper into Takamoto’s work.
— statement by the publisher