Yuki Onodera
TO Where
Yumiko Chiba Associates
オノデラユキ Yuki Onodera
TO Where
Sep 8 – Oct 10 2020
Yumiko Chiba Associates
http://ycassociates.co.jp/exhibitions/2020/08/27/1075/
Venue: Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room shinjuku
Park Grace Shinjuku Bldg. #206, 4-32-6 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0023
Gallery Hours: 12:00 – 18:00 (Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays)
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Yumiko Chiba Associates is delighted to present an exhibition of work by photographer Yuki Onodera. Self-taught in her chosen medium, after launching her practice in Japan, in 1993 Onodera moved to France where she continues to pursue an international career from Paris, earning accolades that include the 28th Kimura Ihei Award for her photo collection cameraChimera in 2003, and France’s most prestigious photography award the Prix Niépce in 2006.
Onodera’s practice and philosophy as a photographer have been devoted to a highly original form of exploration that could be described as an ontology of photography or of the camera, in which she consistently challenges the status of photographs as imitations of the world; copies, recording devices. Reflecting on Onodera’s oeuvre, it is evident that in everything from the camera mechanism to the printing, to the act of taking photographs, there is an emphasis on some kind of formative action or effect. In this sense one could say Onodera has distanced herself from the idea of photography as recording device, and reinterpreted both photo and camera as formative things. As if to swim against the tide of a history holding that the emergence during the age of Impressionism of the camera as a device to faithfully document reality is what propelled new formative developments in painting, Onodera attempts to expand the latent formative possibilities in the technology of camera and photography.
This exhibition of new work by Onodera comprises photographs manipulated in some manner via actions such as collage, painting, photograms and dripping. The gelatin silver prints too are all Onodera’s own work. Onodera has given this new series the title Darkside of the Moon: a place that we know definitely exists, yet which is not visible from where we are.
Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the latest from an artist who in her explorations of the medium of photography, consistently traverses the terrain between cognition and perception.
*TO Where will be staged to coincide with FROM Where, an exhibition at THE GINZA SPACE of works by Onodera including the Portrait of Second-hand Clothes series that was one of her major early offerings.
• Artist Statement
The exhibition TO Where at Yumiko Chiba Associates has been designed to shed light on where my practice is at a quarter-century after Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, being revived concurrently in FROM Where at THE GINZA SPACE. In the concentrated space of YCA, visitors will be able to trace, in a stripped-down, distilled version, the subsequent flowering of my practice in its evolution and specialization. These works are perhaps best described as intensified fragments of a range of different series, but conversely, the show being so bijou in scale will likely give visitors a better overview of the creative flow involved. Dominated by a new project currently in progress, and including the debut of another in the Muybridge’s Twist series of large-scale works, plus a scattering of works of diverse subject and theme, TO Where will hopefully serve up a rich, concentrated curation of treats.
In the quarter-century since 1995’s Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, my work has evolved organically in myriad ways. During that time, the environment surrounding photography has also changed a great deal. Just how long can we go on using the word “photograph”? This is where we find ourselves at present. My interrogations have always been primarily about the existence of “photography” itself, and our very understanding of it. Asking myself questions such as, what can we do with photographs, and what has been attempted with photographs so far, I have experimented repeatedly with giving photographs greater materiality, belying their status as two-dimensional images. These series of works, each group having a very different subject and theme, may at first glance appear to come out of the blue, but from where I’m standing, each has a strong connection to the others.
The show at YCA will be dominated by works in collage, which I predict is about to become a major turning point in my practice, and includes three series notable for their experimental nature, on the theme of photography itself, plus the new work Darkside of the Moon.
All have been created by me using gelatin silver prints, collage, painting, photograms, and dripping. None of which is especially unusual in terms of manual technique, of course. What I would like viewers to note though, is that all the works here are made using slightly odd, unconventional methods of my own devising. The other thing I was particular about with these works was making them single, one-off prints. Obviously the photographic quality of photographs lies in duplication, but here I have gone out of my way to break this down via the production method.
As to the new work, Darkside of the Moon, no matter how much text I write for it, it defies explanation. I’d prefer the viewer to read the work itself as a text. My works have often been referred to as “anti-photographic acts,” and this new work will doubtless be the most “anti” so far. It too is a one-off, rendered as collage on canvas. A set of three, those three photographs having no end. The relationship between the different images goes in a cycle, forming an endlessly repeating circle. The physical act of dripping, which seems to deny the existence of the image as an entity, makes the bonds between the images solid. Perhaps Darkside of the Moon will have some eye-opening effect, in which thanks to a conflicting “severing and dissolving” among the collaged photos, and its recurrence, we are shown a flip side of sight and cognizance totally invisible to us ordinarily; indeed akin to seeing the “dark side of the moon” invisible to our eyes; something we know of, yet cannot see.
Yuki Onodera, Paris, July 2, 2020
Photo caption: Yuki Onodera, Detail of “Darkside of the Moon” no.01, set of 3, 130 x 130cm, gelatin silver print, drip painting, collage on canvas, 2020.
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Joint Exhibition
Yuki Onodera ‘FROM Where’
Tuesday, September 8 – Sunday, November 29, 2020 *Closed on Sep14, Oct 19, and Nov 16
Venue: THE GINZA SPACE
B2F Ginza Seigetsudo Bldg., 5-9-15 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan 104-0061
Gallery Hours: 11:00 – 19:00
TEL: 03-5537-7825
www.company.theginza.co.jp/space/
Organized by the Ginza Co., Ltd.
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オノデラユキ Yuki Onodera
TO Where
Sep 8 – Oct 10 2020
Yumiko Chiba Associates
www.ycassociates.co.jp
#205 Park Grace Shinjuku bldg., Nishi-Shinjuku 4-32-6, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 160-0023 Japan
東京都新宿区西新宿4-32-6 パークグレース新宿＃206
Tel: +81 (0)3 6276 6731
http://ycassociates.co.jp/exhibitions/2020/08/27/1075/
Yumiko Chiba Associates viewing room shinjukuでは、2020年9月8日(火)より、オノデラユキの個展「TO Where」を開催いたします。
写真家・オノデラユキの個展を開催いたします。オノデラは、独学で写真技術を身に付け、作家活動をスタートさせました。1993年に渡仏し、2003年に写真集『カメラキメラ』で第28回木村伊兵衛賞、2006年にはフランスにおける最も権威ある写真賞「ニエプス賞」を受賞するなど、世界的な活動を続け、現在もパリを拠点に制作活動を行っています。
写真家としてのオノデラの制作と思考は、一貫して、世界の模倣、写し、記録装置としての写真のありかたに揺さぶりをかけるような、〈写真の存在論〉〈カメラの存在論〉とも形容できる、独自の探究に捧げられてきました。オノデラの制作を振り返れば、カメラの機構、プリント、撮影行為のすべてにおいて、なんらかの造形行為、演出が重視されていることがわかります。この点においてオノデラは、記録装置としての写真から距離を取り、写真とカメラを、造形的なものとして捉え直していると言えるでしょう。印象派の時代、現実の克明な記録を可能にするカメラ装置の出現が、絵画の新たな造形的展開を推し進めた歴史を逆なでするように、オノデラは、カメラと写真というテクノロジーに潜在する造形的な可能性こそを拡張しようとするのです。
新作個展となる本展は、コラージュ、ペインティング、フォトグラム、ドリッピングといった行為によって、何らかの操作がなされた写真で構成されます。銀塩写真プリントも、すべてオノデラ自身によるものです。これらのシリーズは、『Darkside of the Moon』と名付けられました。たしかに存在することは知っていても、その場所からは見えない「月の裏側」。写真というメディアの探究において、認識と知覚のあわいを往還するオノデラの新作をぜひご高覧ください。
※本展は、ザ・ギンザ スペースで開催される、オノデラの初期の代表作『古着のポートレート』ほかの作品を展観する『FROM Where』展との同時開催となります。
■アーティスト・ステートメント
Yumiko Chiba Associatesの個展『TO Where』は、同時開催となる資生堂ザ・ギンザの＜THE GINZA SPACE＞によるリバイバル展『FROM Where – 古着のポートレート』の四半世紀後を明らかにすべく企画された。YCAの高密度な空間でその後の進化と分化の開花、そのキュッと詰まったエキスのようなものを鑑賞していただければと思う。それらは多様な作品群の先鋭化された断片とも言えるが、逆に少ない数であることによってクリエイティヴィティーの流れが俯瞰できるのではないだろうか。現在制作中の新作を中心に、大作マイブリッジ・ツイスト未発表作、さらに多様な被写体とテーマの作品をちりばめた空間は濃密／高密度な展示となるに違いない。
『古着のポートレート』発表の1995年から四半世紀、私の作品は有機的に多様に進化してきた。そしてその間、写真を取り巻く環境は大きく変容した。「写真」という言葉はいったい、いつまで使用できるのだろう？これが我々の置かれた現在の状況である。当初から私の疑問の中心は「写真」それ自身の存在とその認識、それ自体にあった。写真で何ができるのか、写真で何が試されて来たのか、などの問いを自問しながら二次元イメージに過ぎない写真を物質化させようと実験を重ねてきた。被写体もテーマもまちまちなそれらの作品群は一見唐突にも見えるだろうが、私の立ち位置から見れば各作品どうしが強く結びつけられているのである。
YCAではそれらのシリーズから、今後大きな分水嶺となるかもしれないコラージュ作品を中心に、「写真自体」をテーマにした実験性際立つ３シリーズ、そして新作『Darkside of the Moon』を展示する。
全て私自身の手による銀塩写真プリント、コラージュ、ペインティング、フォトグラム、ドリッピングで作り上げられている。手仕事の技術としてはとりわけ珍しいものではないが、注意して見て頂きたいのはどれも自身で発明したちょっとおかしな独自の技法によって作られていること。そしてもう一つこだわっている点は、これらが一回限りの一点性のプリント作品だということ。むろん写真の写真性とは複製にあるわけだが、ここでは制作方法によってそれを敢えて壊している。
新作の『Darkside of the Moon』。テキストをいくら書いても説明は難しい。むしろ作品自身をテキストとして読んでいただきたい。今まで私の作品について何度も「反写真行為」といった言葉が発せられてきたが、この新作はその中でも最もアンチ写真となる作品だろう。キャンバスにコラージュされた、これも完全な１点限りの作品。三点セットの連作、その三点の写真には終わりがない。それぞれのイメージの関係が循環し輪となり永遠に繰り返えされる。イメージという存在を否定するかようなフィジカルな行為「ドリッピング」がその繋ぎを強固にする。コラージュされた写真同士の相反する「切断と溶解」、この繰り返しによって我々には日常まったく見えてこない視覚と認識の裏側を見せられるような、目眩を起すような効果がありそうだ。そう、例えば我々の目からは見えない『月の裏側』を見るような、知っていても見えない存在とも言えるのだ。
Yuki Onodera, Paris, July 2, 2020
写真：Yuki Onodera, Detail of “Darkside of the Moon” no.01, set of 3, 130 x 130cm, gelatin silver print, drip painting, collage on canvas, 2020.
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Design & developpement: ABC Japon