東の光、西の風 Eastern Light, Western Wind 4/12~5/9 東京個展 Tokyo Exhibition
東京アメリカンクラブ内のフレデリック・ハリスギャラリーにて個展を開催します。開催期間は4月12日〜5月9日となります。クラブ会員以外の方は完全予約制となりますので、reserva.be/georgenobechi より事前予約願います。
This is a 50+piece solo exhibition at the Tokyo American Club Frederick Harris Gallery April 12~May 9, 2022. Non-Club Members, please visit reserva.be/georgenobechi to book a date and time to view the exhibition.
In art and literature, we associate "The West” with a rugged, frontier romanticism steeped in myth. Our books and stories have depicted “The Far East” as an exotic paradise, a mythical “Shangri-la." Both the Far West and the Far East continue to be the subjects of our fascination and remain steeped in spirituality and legend. However, their modern realities also reveal a sense of transience: the sublime landscapes belie the slow decline of the once romanticized ideals, as the sands of time sweep over the hands of man. Whether we gaze upon mountains or canyons, oceans or ponds, skyscrapers or huts, the only constant is impermanence.
The concept of “landscape” in Western thought refers to the features of the land, whereas the idea of 「風景」 (fuu-kei) in Eastern thought refers to wind and light. The photographs in this exhibition depict both viewpoints, hence the title Eastern Light, Western Wind.
As we gaze upon the seemingly opposite landscapes/fuu-kei of Japan and the American West, we begin to see the common duality: a reverence for and memorialization of the sublime beauty of the land, light and wind, as well as the attempts by humankind to harness their grandeur.
We are also a part of the fabric of this cultural and visual timeline. We are participating in the stories of two cultures, two ethos and two landscapes: of West and East, observer and participant, story-seeker and story-teller.
Footnote:
This body of work, made on my journeys between 2015 and 2022, is not intended to merely contrast Western and Eastern landscapes, but rather to evoke the emotional equivalence that we are the same, but different. The photographs, carefully curated and paired together with the help of Dr. Brett L. Erickson, photographer, educator and philosopher of the American West, are printed on handmade washi paper from the Awagami Factory in Shikoku, Japan. The paper’s organic qualities create a three-dimensionality in a medium noted for its two-dimensional approach, and it evokes a sense of reverence and memorialization of the landscape to reflect the subjects of the imagery. The design, mounting and installation have been developed in collaboration with Mr. Takashi Kakishima of Poetic Scape Gallery in Japan to further blur the distinctions we make and to display the photographs in both traditional Western and Eastern ways.
