showcase #11 “Definitely Local”
curated by minoru shimizu
IKUSHUN
2023.04.14(fri.)— 05.14(sun.)
open on fri., sat., and sun. 12:00-18:00
appointments are available on weekdays
KG+ 2023
eN arts is pleased to announce its annual Showcase Exhibition curated by Mr. Minoru Shimizu is opening on April 14, 2023. Focused on photography and videos, this year’s artist for “Showcase #11 ‘Definitely Local” is Ikushun.
Ikushun’s basic approach is to use a digital camera to take pictures of “scenes in life” and just “scenes fun or interesting to photograph”. Thus, Ikushun doesn’t have a particular artist statement nor a particular abstract concept. Rather, the focus is on a subject’s state of action: “moving/in motion.” Predicting the movement of the subject and then preserving that exquisite instant of action is what makes these works of art in my mind. Ikushun’s photographs are scenes that we overlook in our daily lives, so what the artists calls “taking pictures normally” may not be normal for most ordinary people.
This exhibition features over 300 individual photographic works. In the first exhibition room, Ikushun collected photos taken during some trips to China, including Shanghai and Chongqing. In the second exhibition room, there are works taken at Ikushun’s favorite shops near his home, on the way to his friend’s house, on the way to the rugby field, in the neighborhood of his parents’ home, and similar places of his daily life. We will also present a video work (about 30 minutes) that connects short videos, each between10 seconds to 2 minutes, taken with a smartphone or digital camera in Black Cube in the basement exhibition room. Please enjoy each and every photo from corner to corner, being careful to look for stories hidden in the works and everyday events that seem to be seen but are not actually obvious at first.
We are looking forward to your visit to eN arts
Naomi Rowe | eN arts
Please note that eN arts is also participating in KYOTOGRAPHIE 2023 KG+, which will be held from April 14, 2023.
For details: https://kgplus.kyotographie.jp/en/exhibitions/2023/ikushun/
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showcase #11 “Definitely Local” curated by minoru shimizu
Ikushun is back.
Ikushun (1980- ) won honorable mention in the Canon New Cosmos of Photography competitions in 2009 and 2011, appeared in showcase #2 in 2013, and garnered attention once again in 2015 with the photo book “Desuyone (Seigensha)”. However, subsequent to these successes, he only sporadically posted daily photos on his blog and had no opportunity to publish anything major, and so eight years passed silently without him. Looking at the recent works posted on his blog, I easily recognized that he still has the power to bring both pleasure and dissatisfaction at the same time in his works, so I contacted him for the first time in several years and he kindly agreed to participate in showcase #11.
Ikushun’s photographs take the so-called street snap style. They without doubt reflect the “decisive moment” and display elements of “Thomasson” or “VOW photography”, but his works will never be the same. Like a fullback reading the individual movements of the players scattered on a square rugby field, he observes every corner of the square frame that “cuts out” the world, reads the next moment and presses the shutter, and uses various subjects in a fashion similar to Garry Winogrand , but Ikushin never uses the tilt (tilting the camera) that Winogrand used so much , are in contrast to the sharp class and racial disparities that Winogrand’s photos sometimes show, and Ikushun’s photographs persistently and tirelessly capture the small weaknesses and cracks in the flat everyday world of Japan. In those weaknesses and fissures, it’s not that the real world that is usually hidden appears. Ikushun’s photographs only reflect the fact that the world is always has weaknesses and gaps.
Minoru Shimizu