Seen: Showa 96
Who: Kazuyoshi Usui website / instagram
Where: Zen Foto Gallery, Roppongi, Tokyo (map)
When: March 8 - 30, 2019 (Open 12-7pm. Closed Sun. & Mon.)
Kazuyoshi Usui’s latest electric-colored installment of his Showa trilogy is up at Zen Foto Gallery- This series is photographer’s take on an possibly alternate mirror Japan-iverse where yakuza and geisha and wonderfully and eternally mid-century debris collide in an odd world drenched in color and light. He creates (discovers?) this realm with his Pentax and color film.
“I am not trying to express nostalgia by naming my series ‘Showa’. To me, ‘Showa’ represents the ‘gritty determination to survive’. Rather, I am trying to create a world of fantasy, imagining if ‘Showa’ had continued to exist in another time and space and what kind of world it will be. I am releasing this third part of my Showa work just as the Heisei Era is coming to an end.
I find aesthetics in the contradictions and fraying that exist in human beings trying to survive throughout their life - people who continue to follow their own beliefs even when they are regarded as misfits. By following my gut feeling, sometimes I make portraits of them and sometimes I build stories from the feelings I get from the places.
Perhaps this whole process is now complete, and I hope to have filled the emptiness in my contradictory state of mind - living in a world of great comfort without having to worry about food and other necessities, even though I am thankful for the achievements of our predecessors.
Am I being driven by the era, or am I being driven by what I have deliberately made up for myself?
The only certain thing is, Heisei is ending this year, but Showa continues.”
- Kazuyoshi Usui
A new photobook accompanies the show- fans of Usui won’t be disappointed- it fits perfectly with his previous two Showa volumes.