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EXHIBITION

The 2nd “1_WALL” Photography Competition Grand Prize Winner

Daisuke Yokota: "indication"

  • DATES : Mon. February 7 - Thu. February 24, 2011
  • HOURS : 12:00p.m.-7:00p.m.
  • Closed Sundays and holidays. Admission Free.

In February, Guardian Garden will host “indication,” a solo exhibition of works by Daisuke Yokota, winner of the Grand Prize in the 2nd “1_WALL” Photography Competition held in the spring of 2010. “1_WALL” is a series of open competitions, held separately in the categories of photography and graphics, launched in 2009 to supersede the earlier “Hitotsubo” competitions. A pamphlet prepared by Yokota in tandem with this event will be available for purchase in the gallery.

Uncertain vision: a collection of photographs open to interpretation by the viewer
Daisuke Yokota won the Grand Prize for “Fog,” his flash photos taken with a digital camera in which, attracted to space in which memory and the present, image and reality, co-exist in perfect harmony, he sought to capture something within a misty vision. The photos were acclaimed for their “sense of speed, seeking to grasp what is aimed at” and for their “sensual integrity.”
In his solo exhibition Yokota will unveil “indication,” his new work on the theme of how people view and interpret what they see differently depending on their preconceptions.
What we see is greatly influenced by what we each experience in our everyday lives. Yokota has experienced firsthand how, even when we look at the same thing as somebody else, we each interpret it altogether differently; and he is interested in how, even when looking at the identical thing, what it indicates to us differs depending on our individual preconceptions and knowledge. And at that point, from an earlier conviction that what we see is certain, the doubt takes root that perhaps what we see is actually uncertain.
In the photos Yokota will be showing here, we may find a scene of a forest in which something seems to be lurking, or a landscape resembling that of a planet somewhere as seen from a space probe, or an image-like something we saw sometime in a dream or hidden in the mists of our memory. Every photo should speak eloquently of various things depending on the viewer. Visitors are sure to enjoy Yokota’s world mixing what is real and what is fallacious.

Daisuke Yokota

Born in Saitama Prefecture in 1983, Daisuke Yokota graduated from Nippon Photography Institute (NPI). In 2010, he won the Grand Prize in the 2nd “1_WALL” Photography Competition. In 2013, he received the Outset Unseen Exhibition Fund at the Unseen Photo Fair; in 2015, the John Kobal Residency Award at Photo London; and in 2016, the Foam Paul Huf Award. Yokota has published numerous photobooks, including MATTER/BURN OUT, VERTIGO and Taratine. His major solo exhibitions include “Site/Cloud” (2014) and “Matter” (2017), both at Foam. He has also participated in “Trans-dimensional Photos: Images in the Future Tense,” part of The Column Project at Aichi Triennale 2016; “Shape of Light” at Tate Modern in 2018; and “Painting the Night” at Centre Pompidou in 2018-2019. In 2016, Yokota formed the unit “Spew” together with photographers Koji Kitagawa and Naohiro Utagawa. Spew undertakes a broad array of artistic activities that also encompasses zine production and musical performance.

Message from the Artist

Once, when I was riding on a train, sitting side by side across from me were a man and a woman of considerable age difference. I noticed they were there but didn’t pay any particular attention to them. The friend I was with, though, noticed something odd, although I’m not sure exactly at what point, and from early on he was watching them with a suspicious eye. I had just assumed they were a brother and his younger sister. Later, after I learned the truth, in retrospect I should have seen the oddity of their relationship. But I didn’t think there was anything odd about them. Their oddity had been concealed by my assumption that they were brother and sister.

Daisuke Yokota

 

Message from One of the Judges

Yokota’s works are like fragments plucked from a video. First, without fuss he captures his world with a digital camera, and takes it home. Then, from that, he selects one photo. With a video, you would have to spend time going through its content in entirety, but with a single selected photo, its “selection” takes predominance, so the viewer is made to mull its meaning. From the abundance of our video experience nowadays, we can easily conjecture the act of its shooting, but Yokota is keenly alert both to shooting and to selecting. I have high expectations of him.

Risaku Suzuki (photographer)

 

2nd “1_WALL” Photography Exhibition
March 23 (Tue) – April 15 (Thu), 2010
Final round of judging: March 26 (Fri), 2010

Daisuke Yokota was selected to receive the Grand Prize by the following panel of judges:
Atsuki Kikuchi (art director)
Risaku Suzuki (photographer)
Mariko Takeuchi (photography critic)
Rika Noguchi (photographic artist)
Satoshi Machiguchi (art director)

For information on the 2nd “1_WALL” Photography Exhibition, click here.

Organizer: Guardian Garden