Great news for Tokyo fans of street photography; Gallery Niepce is exhibiting some excellent work by Osaka based photographer Jun Abe from August 10th to the 19th. (Niepce google streetview)
Abe sensei is a longtime instructor at the School of Visual Arts, Osaka (a former student of his, Shinya Arimoto, teaches at the Tokyo branch) and for one reason or another rarely exhibits his work outside his hometown. The owner of Niepce texted me to say that Abe would be in the gallery this weekend and having written about his books Citizens, Kokubyaku Note, and more recently Manila, I was looking forward to finally meeting the photographer in person for the first time.
While en route to the exhibition I ran into Shinya Arimoto- he was headed the same way so we walked together to the show. Abe sensei was friendly, yet soft-spoken, fairly reserved, and rather humble. His unassuming demeanor no doubt allows him to shoot the way he does on the streets. He didn’t go out of his way to offer his own thoughts or opinions on the work, but was fine with talking about the background story to images. Since his pictures often hinge on a bewildering sense of timing or situation these details helped put the images into a broader context, they never overpowered the ability of the pictures to continue to surprise or impress the viewer.
We were able to chat for a little bit and on the topic of gear he told me he uses a Nikon FE with a 28 or 35mm lens and shoots Tri-X which he develops in D-76 (1:1). Similar to Michio Yamauchi, his choice of materials is situated at the most elementary level of black and white photographic practice. This means that with the “how” long out of the way, he’s been able to focus on the “what” of his photographic output.
With his permission I am able to share some photos from the show here.
The exhibition is comprised of two parts- a majority of the work was 11×14 fiber prints from Citizens:
Additionally there were many excellent images from this series that did not appear in the book:
The second part of the show was simply titled 1982. To my understanding the two rows of RC prints making up this series have not been exhibited before, much less published. There were some fantastic images here, too.
If you’re unable to make it to the gallery by August 19th but would still like to see more of Jun Abe’s work you can purchase his books from Japan Exposures.
Wish he would do some exhibition outside Japan.
Comment by kinoz — August 11, 2012 @ 4:45 pm
Wish he would publish more books!
and btw John, when are you going to publish a book? Love your work!
Comment by davy — August 12, 2012 @ 6:32 am
Excellent work.
Comment by Michael Penn — August 12, 2012 @ 6:50 am
Oh wow, nice timing, I landed at Narita yesterday!
Comment by bie — August 12, 2012 @ 8:16 am
Kinoz- I agree. His work is too good to not get out to a larger audience.
Davy- I have a feeling that he might have some more books in the works. (Unfortunately (and oddly) I didn’t ask when we spoke) As soon as he does I promise to get the word out. Thanks for your compliment on my work as well- – I’d like to self publish similar to Arimoto Shinya’s “Ariphoto” books next year.
Michael- Indeed.
Bie- Glad the timing works out for you!
Comment by John — August 12, 2012 @ 10:27 pm
John – If you plan to publish your work like Shinya Arimoto “Ariphoto”, do let us know, I am a fan of self publishing work and some of your work is really interesting. Regards from Malaysia.
Comment by kinoz — August 12, 2012 @ 11:24 pm
Stopped by the show today, and, like I told the owner, this is why I love coming to Tokyo. Photographically strong and conceptually “hollow” (this is a compliment) work like this just doesn’t show up in Europe at all these days.
Comment by bie — August 12, 2012 @ 11:53 pm
Thank you for posting about this great exhibit. Put me on the list for your book, too
Comment by Jim Clinefelter — August 14, 2012 @ 1:47 pm