With pleasure IBASHO announces a solo exhibition of the New York based Japanese photographer Motohiro Takeda (1982). The vernissage will take place on 28 April from 19:00 -22:00.

Takeda’s forte lies in camera-less photography. When studying at Parsons, The New School For Design in New York, Takeda became fascinated by the camera obscura and the idea of being inside the camera. He turned his bedroom into a camera obscura by blocking all the windows with black plastic sheets, making a pinhole in the plastic and started living in this camera obscura. As he spent more and more time in the camera, he started to understand what it was and what it meant for him to be there. Then, he gradually started making a series 'Invitation' consisting of self-portraits on multiple sheets of chromogenic paper, resulting in very large orange/red coloured unique works of 2.5 x 2.5 meters.

His series ‘Another Sun’ was the result of a discovery by Takeda of an accidental registration of the sun on the photographic paper hanging in his apartment. He realised he wanted to create a series around the source of the creation of his large portraits, following the cycle of the seasons. Works from this series can be seen at Takeda’s exhibition at IBASHO.

‘Blink/Matataki’ is Takeda’s latest series on show at IBASHO in which he has used curtains or veils to deepen his concept of the camera obscura. To Takeda the camera obscura is a metaphor of our perception and how we see the outside world and process it with our mind and consciousness. The pinhole or the window is the eye that serves as a passage of light to look out the world outside and at the same time, bring them into one’s inner space. In this series of work, the existence of the two spaces which merge and separate simultaneously and seamlessly to each other are symbolised by the ghosty image of the curtains. Curtain is a metaphor of the eyelids which veils and unveils the world in front of you.

Artists: Motohiro Takeda