EXHIBITIONS

Yosuke Takeda “Ash without fire here”

Dates: Sep 7 – Oct 26, 2019
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film
Opening reception: Friday, Sep 13, 18:00 – 20:00

Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film is pleased to present “Ash without fire here,” an exhibition of works by Yosuke Takeda from Sep 7 to Oct 26. This exhibition marks Takeda’s third solo presentation with Taka Ishii Gallery since his previous showing three years ago, and features new works from his on-going “Digital Flare” series along with a recent film piece and a selection of related photographic works.

Takeda’s concern is with light, and the color in his photographs is by no means pictorial color; rather, it is prism color that seeps out from the light nurtured within the frame. Although at a glance they look like aesthetic, pictorial images of the flickering of rays of sunshine filtering through the branches of trees, the images in the series “Digital Flare” are in fact photographs of strong light being drawn into the camera and the area within the frame being turned into what might be called a supersaturated state. This is the pure model for Takeda’s photography. Photographed in high resolution, the details are filled with light textures that undulate in an almost chaotic manner.

Minoru Shimizu, ‘Critical Fieldwork 47: Isolation and distance, or light in a box and light on paper,’ ARTiT, ART iT, Apr 18, 2014 (https://www.art-it.asia/en/u/admin_ed_contri7/60cpuncl38hjqos7roeg)

The series called “Digital Flare” captures the phenomenon that occurs when pointing a digital camera directly towards a strong source of light. While informed by the artist’s strong interest towards the fundamental elements of photography such as light and shadow, or moments of chance, the works have been developed under the nonconformist challenge of fixing upon the prints “signature of the lens” that is ordinarily removed in conventional photographs where the subject only exists outside the contours of the camera system. In addition to iconic flares, ghosts, and the blurring of colors, in Takeda’s new works it is possible to observe striking rings of light captured more prominently than ever. Such works perhaps fascinate viewers for their perilous nature, having been conceived as a result of shootings where the camera is exposed to intense light, so much so, that its inside melts due to the heat.

In Takeda’s film work that is inspired by his photograph of the water’s surface (2013), the golden tones (=symbol of eternity) and the water’s fluid surface (=a symbol of that which is constantly changing) are contrastingly depicted. The film footage, its film stills, and photographs that are juxtaposed and exhibited within the same context appear to reveal a sense of circularity –film as a collection of photographic moments, and vice versa, photography as isolated moments of film. The ambivalent allure characteristic of Takeda’s works can also be observed in the water with its viscous texture that writhes in a mysterious manner, and the faint and ephemeral light lingering upon its surface.

Yosuke Takeda was born in 1982 in Aichi Prefecture and graduated with a degree in philosophy from Doshisha University in 2005. Whilst studying, he started working with darkroom production and triggered by the gradual discontinuation of photographic film and paper he shifted towards digital photography. He continues to produce various works overflowing with a penetrating degree of consciousness towards photography as a medium. Recent solo exhibitions include “cancel”, 3331 GALLERY, Tokyo (2012); “Stay Gold”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2012) and “Stay Gold: Digital Flare”, Kurenboh, Tokyo (2014); “Arise”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2016). His works are included in the collection of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Banco de España, Madrid; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco/Paris.

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