Seen: 銀塩女優 SUMMER XU
Who: Nobuyoshi Araki 荒木経惟
Where: Art Space AM, Harajuku (map)
When: January 22 - February 17, 2019 (Open 1-7pm. Closed Mondays, Tuesdays)
Since around 2016 or 2017 it’s possible that by combining Art Space AM’s successive and lengthy exhibitions of Nobuyoshi Araki’s work along with his annual shows at Rathole&Taka Ishii galleries you’ll see that the photographer’s photographs are on display in Tokyo more days out of a year than not. Indeed, Summer Xu opened a mere two days after his previous show closed.
The photographs which comprise Summer Xu are the result of a few shoots with Chinese actress 许晴 Xu Qing and macro polaroids of flowers from Araki’s archives. The gallery’s website states that the first contact between the two was in the 1990s- the most recent works in the show were made in late 2018. A commemoration of sorts, the exhibition opened on Xu’s fiftieth birthday.