YAMAMOTO Masao "KAWA=FLOW"（TOKYO）

We are pleased to present “kawa=flow” the second solo exhibition at the gallery by YAMAMOTO Masao. 

Yamamoto has been showing mainly in the USA and Europe and in this year he joined in Photography Festival Krakow, Poland and some exhibitions in Portland, Atlanta, Milan, Zurich, and Antwerp. After this show, another solo exhibitions in Paris, Cologne, Freiburg, Tucson are coming up.

His photographic works are mostly in monochrome and its aged texture reminds us of “memories dropping out of someone’s drawers”. Small as snapshot but speechlessly beautiful pictures have been exhibited as a group of about ten to several hundreds spread across the wall, or sometimes placed in a small box. Tranquility around the each photograph expanded to the whole space. Strangely existence of single piece and whole installation seem to be equal. It recalls relationship between self and the world in oriental and Japanese thoughts. Western audience might pick up those essences and maybe that is why his work is also widely appreciated in western world.

Yamamoto’s new attempt is obvious in “kawa=flow”. This time he mounted framed pictures one by one unlike previous exhibitions. Here, the audience confronts each one of them instead of collective entity. Kawa (river) is not a subject but serves as a border. This is not a geographical border but more sentimental one such as lines divides our life and after death, or Kawa (river) implies a flow like our on-going life. The artist experiences the flow when he releases the shutters and a picture taken creates a river running across in front of us. When the audience looks at the world, which is equivalent to individual according to oriental thoughts, there, they realize, both conscious and unconscious, that they all exist in the flow like a river.

Framed individually, his work can be similar to HAIKU. HAIKU brings flow to the world by featuring season words and captures a moment vividly. Yamamoto’s photographic works present a moment in a big flow significantly and beautifully. The world is beautiful and ever changing. We notice such flow when stopping at his river.