Contemporary Art Gallery

Naoki Ishikawa Capturing the Map of Light on This Planet

December 17 (Sat.),2016,to February 26 (Sun.),2017

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From the series K2, 2015

This is the first large-scale solo exhibition by Naoki Ishikawa, a photographer who is active around the globe. Ishikawa completed a human-powered journey from the North Pole to the South Pole at the age of 22, succeeded in summiting the Seven Summits at 23, and continues to journey to diverse places. He has drawn much attention by shedding new light on our everyday and on the world through his unique style of photography, which integrates the perspectives of anthropology and folklore.

In this exhibition Ishikawa’s early works through the present—numerous series including ones on polar regions, Himalayan eight-thousanders and old-growth forests in New Zealand; CORONA, in which he visited Polynesian islands as if guided by the stars; NEW DIMENSION, in which he visited cave paintings around the world; and ARCHIPELAGO, in which he explored the islands that spread north–south in the Japanese archipelago, among others—are introduced in a comprehensive fashion, interwoven with his unpublished works.

Throughout his career Ishikawa has shown a strong interest in technique and wisdom for living—the art of living—handed down for generations in various areas around the globe. He has also consistently explored the organic network of places that divisions such as borders cannot fully capture. Ishikawa’s extensive quest with his eyes and feet is an anthropological fieldwork and at the same time can be seen as an endless journey to pursue art, whose original meaning is “technique.”

Through the footsteps of Naoki Ishikawa as a guide, we believe this exhibition will constitute an opportunity for us to see this planet called Earth from another perspective, distinctively different from the world map we are familiar with.