Seen: Light of the Town まちのひかり
Who: Mitsugu Ohnishi 大西みつぐ
Where: Nikon’s The Gallery, Shinjuku L Tower 28F, Tokyo
When: March 26th - April 15th, 2019
Long known as the photographer of Tokyo’s shitamachi districts, photographer Mitsugu Ohnishi’s latest exhibition brings together reverberations of the wonderland that was Japan’s Showa era- a time which, if one looks clearly and carefully enough, can still be found in pockets of the county.
Countless Japanese photographers approach artifacts of the early postwar era with nostalgia filters firmly attached but what has always separated Ohinishi, a student of Issei Suda, from everyone else is his ability to show how things are more than what they are. This is rooted in a respect and understanding of the area and people there. A faded hand-painted sign or the crooked doorway of a sagging building isn’t a superficially pitiful or “nostalgic” thing- nor a metaphor of any sort. What appears in his pictures are refined presences- things and people polished by both time and a mix of the photographer’s awe with a tinge of appreciative humor.