Kikuji Kawada “Then & Now”
L. Parker Stephenson Photographs
This event has ended.
L. Parker Stephenson Photographs presents an exhibition of work created over a fifty-year span by eminent Japanese photographer Kikuji Kawada. Rare images from Kawada’s early series, The Map (or Chizu in Japanese), from 1960-1965 will be shown alongside his most recent bodies of work: 2011-phenomena and Last Things (2010-2015). Now in his early 80s, Kawada’s later experiments with color and digital materials are as inquisitive and dynamic as his earlier black-and-white analog work.
Kawada’s past themes – the expression of trauma during Japan’s post World War II reconstruction after defeat (The Map), the relation of the human world to celestial forces (The Last Cosmology) and the rebirth of imagined cities following the 9/11 terrorist attacks (Invisible City) - expand in his most recent work to touch on global tensions related to political fears, climate change and media saturation in the years since the recent natural and nuclear disasters in Japan stemming from the Tohoku earthquake five years ago. Whereas The Map - a seminal photo book of the 20th century published in 1965 - looks at history through the aftermath of war and the particulars of the bombing of Hiroshima, 2011- phenomona and Last Things present an expanded vision of the world in flux. In this latest work, Kawada utilizes color and layering offered by the digital medium to expressive force. His visionary understanding of graphics and complex photographic narrative are seen to full effect in these sumptuous and challenging photographs.
Media
Schedule
from February 19, 2016 to April 30, 2016
Closing Reception on 2016-03-09 from 18:00 to 20:00