Seen: This Game We Play
Who: Giovanni Pascarella / ジョバンニ パスカレッラ
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: February 6 - 11, 2018 (Open 1-7pm)
“This Game We Play” reminds me of Lee Friedlander’s remark that “the pleasures of good photographs are the pleasures of good photographs”.
All of the photographs which comprise this fascinating exhibition are indeed good photographs. And all were printed by Giovanni Pascarella, an Italian living in Japan. Some in the show were shot by him with his cameras on modern film- but the others were made from vintage negatives. Gio has great interest in Japanese vernacular snapshots- he shares some on his tumblr- his searches for antique prints sometimes result in negatives as well.
He printed these old medium format negatives in a darkroom- enlarged to 16x20 prints. Interspersing his own contemporary film work in with these forgotten images allows the show to be more than just an appreciation of “the olden days” and instead go deeper into a shared history in which all amateur photographs might be connected by. The original photographers will never know, but I like to think that they’d be happy to know that their negatives have been used to create something so enjoyable sixty-plus years after they were developed. This show has to be seen to be believed- don’t miss it.