Seen: Kage
Who: 菱沼勇夫 / Isao Hishinuma website
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: April 14 - May 3, 2015 / Open 12:00-19:00 / (Closed Mondays)
Paired with, and immediately exhibited after, his pervious show 彼者誰 / Kawatare (TCS Review) , Kage is evidence that Hishinuma has taken his game even higher.
The production quality alone would make most fine art museums nervous- and if you haven’t ever experienced 1-meter x 1-meter sized Hasselblad (& Mamiya 6) C-prints from Fuji Pro 400H film in person, there’s no doubt you’ll find their luminescence simply incredible. Normally this means little if the images themselves aren’t able to transmit anything beyond demonstration of technical prowess and showmanship- Hishinuma’s work however, is unsettlingly sexy, frightening, disturbing, vivid, quiet, and in my opinion, quite honest.
Hishinuma works diligently on this slowly progressive revelation of something that he needs to create. No one else in Japan is doing what he does- he’s one to keep an eye on. No doubt we’ll soon be seeing his name tied in with terms like “rising young photographer” here soon.