Seen: 「愛のバルコニー」Balcony of Love
Who: 荒木経惟 Nobuyoshi Araki
Where: JCII Photo Salon, Hanzomon Tokyo (map)
When: January 7 - February 2, 2019 (Open 10-5pm. Closed Mondays)
The Japan Camera Industry Institute owns a building located in Hanzomon near the British Embassy- inside are lecture halls, a classrooms, small gallery spaces, and a library with 38,000 photobooks. (If “JCII” sounds familiar it may be that you’ve seen small golden stickers on Japanese cameras from the 1950′s - 1980′s that say “JCII Passed”. (Read this for the history of these labels). The JCII Photo Salon is a terrific throwback to late twentieth-century Japanese photo culture- they hold exhibitions of their collection of Japanese photography all year, one photographer at a time.
The sense of Showa-practicality that the venue possesses gives each exhibition equal importance- regardless of the photographer they all get a bunch of their photos put in the same frames on the same black-cloth-covered walls. Nothing flashy about it- there’s nothing to boost or detract from the work. Or to suggest what it’s worth- I’ve been to some shows here and made a quick estimate of what the prints might be worth on the fine art collector market- If this was anywhere else but Japan a gallery showing the work they do might need to invest in some security. Since this is Tokyo however, the nice older lady at the counter suffices.
The gallery has started 2019 with Balcony of Love by Nobuyoshi Araki. It collects about eighty silver gelatin prints of photographs taken on the veranda of his previous apartment building near Gotokuji station from the mid 1980s to 2011. The work is fantastic- it goes to show how photographers don’t need to go far for good pictures. Sometimes all they need is step out the door. Or have Robert Frank come visit.
Per usual JCII exhibition custom a small paperback catalog in the identical format and dimensions as all of their previous ones to commemorate the show- it’s modestly priced at a mere 800 yen.