© Taisuke Koyama
During my exceedingly short trip to Tokyo earlier this month, a friend of mine took me on a whirlwind up-and-coming-photography tour of Tokyo. First stop was at the G/P Gallery, in the new NADiff a/p/a/r/t art complex in Ebisu (which incidentally has an excellent art bookstore). They had a small solo-show (14 prints) of the young photographer Taisuke Koyama‘s entropix series. I had made a mention of Koyama’s work in the piece I wrote for Images magazine last year highlighting some of the Japanese photography on show at the 2008 edition of Paris Photo. I didn’t get to see enough of his prints at the fair, but I found the couple of images that I did see interesting.
Entropix is a series of visual fragments, seemingly haphazard abstractions that still retain a link to their subject (paint peeling, pink fabric, tarmac, sheet metal). The images are highly detailed, feeling like microscopic, molecular studies of the surfaces of the city. Koyama’s compositions are both strong and simple, and they retain an instinctive energy reminiscent of Eggleston’s shotgun approach. The (digital) prints are good, although I prefer the smaller prints to the larger edition (1.2 x 1.8m), which I found diluted the impact of the images a bit.
© Taisuke Koyama
I ran into Koyama later on that evening at a discussion organised by Akira Rachi at CAMP in Hacchobori (more on this later) where he was presenting entropix and had a chance to chat briefly to him. He will be coming to Paris Photo with G/P again this year so this will be a chance to see more of his work. And if you don’t feel like waiting until then, a catalogue of the series is also available from G/P. One to watch.
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3 Comments
When I saw this I was confused, in the sense that I did not understand what the photographer was going for. After making a round of the gallery, I opened up the book on the table and saw some of his previous work which made things fall into place. I liked the images he had of peeling paint, tiles and potted plants, and scratch marks on a metal surface. The prints that were hanging up were a little bit too “loose” for me, but it wasn’t bad. I don’t have a good system yet for tracking photographers, but I am definitely curious to see what he’ll do with this approach. Right now he is looking at very small things, perhaps he will pull the camera back a bit.
It is always difficult in these tiny Tokyo galleries to really be able to put together a fully-fledged exhibition, when there is barely space for 10 prints on the wall (especially in our world of print-gigantism). I don’t think there is a clearly articulated concept behind these however, or at least I don’t think that is what makes their strength. I was drawn to them for two reasons. First, because I felt Koyama had an individual visual approach, one which I hadn’t seen before. The other reason is the cumulative effect of his images, which comes through better from the book, I agree. For me this is the real strength of the series, rather than in any one individual image. If you go on Koyama’s website, you’ll see that he has a slideshow running of entropix. Each image only flashes up very briefly, and while I found this off-putting at first, I think it makes a lot of sense as a way of presenting this work. It helps to form an overall impression, as if all these surface fragments start pulling together and overlapping to form something larger, that feels more like the city itself. I have to say I hope he doesn’t pull the camera back…if anything I hope he goes in even closer and gets even more under the skin of the city.
Thanks for the link to his site. I hadn’t considered that he could be making a secret image of Tokyo, that seems like a useful way to think about it.