Seen: 昨日 Yesterday
Who: Mitsuru Sato (previously on TCS)
Where: RED Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: August 31 - September 13, 2020 / 12:00-19:00 daily
So many good shows are going on in Tokyo this week… I’m always glad to see Mitsuru Sato’s latest entries in his ongoing diaristic, quiet “Yesterday” series. He doesn’t have a website but I’ve been sharing installation views of his work for a few years now.
His lens meanders through the city, often alighting on young women in trains lost in smartphone-glow or men hunched over beers in Shinjuku. While the core of his vision remains, in this newest show the reflection of Tokyo’s total masking appears. The masks that seperate (and protect) people, the vinyl barriers between diners packed in at ramen counters- even the usual sound-barrier cloth put up around construction projects takes on a new feeling.
But if there’s any “message” to these pictures it’s not one that’s scientific nor political or of any urgency. Maybe it’s simply, “this is what it looks like now”.