Contemporary Art Gallery

Asada Masashi: Somebody’s Best Album

The Asadas: All Japan Edition/Niigata Prefecture

This exhibition invites visitors to trace the oeuvre of Asada Masashi from the origin of his creative activities to his latest works guided by words by the photographer himself, whose themes have consistently been “family” and “memorial photo.”
Since the publication of Asada-ke (The Asadas) in 2008, Asada’s own family members have been his subject matter. He utilizes the technique of setup, in which he and his family play diverse situations, integrating how his family changes over time. He has also produced works where he worked with publicly recruited families to shoot their photographs, making the act of taking a photograph itself “memorial.” In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Asada was involved in a volunteer activity to clean photographs caught in the tsunami—an experience that propelled him to be engaged in the activity of communicating the importance of creating and leaving behind photo albums.
In addition to Asada’s entire series, this exhibition presents his latest work, the Ibaraki edition of My Family, and follows the latest development of the photo-returning activity in Noda Village in Iwate Prefecture. In My Family, participants are regarded as both objects of photography and collaborators. By focusing on their family memories and emotions, Asada’s photography and the participants’ text render family stories.
With the restrictions that the novel coronavirus pandemic has brought about, we found ourselves facing “family” more than ever. Moreover, natural disasters, which have become increasingly frequent in recent years, have sparked the following question: “How can we keep our indispensable memories?” Through the diverse perceptions of family that Asada renders, we invite you to reflect upon somebody’s best album, as well as your own.

Asada Masashi

Profile

A photographer born in 1979 in Mie Prefecture, Asada Masashi won the 34th Kimura Ihei Photography Award with his family photo book Asada-ke (AKAAKA Art Publishing). Asada has been actively engaged in activities such as art projects involving photographing ordinary people in various parts of Japan, as well as the promotion of photography. His main exhibitions include “Tsu Family Land—Asada Masashi’s Photography” (2010, Mie Prefectural Art Museum, solo exhibition), “Hachinohe Review” (2011, Hachinohe Portal Museum “hacchi”), “Memorial Photo That Makes Memorial Day” (2011, Fukuoka Camera Museum, solo exhibition), “All You Need Is LOVE: From Chagall to Kusama and Hatsune Miku” (2013, Mori Art Museum), “You reach out – right now – for something : Questioning the Concept of Fashion” (2014, Art Tower Mito and Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art), “Hobo Kazoku (Almost Family)” (2016, Irie Taikichi Memorial Museum of Photography Nara City, solo exhibition), “Asada Masashi Photography Exhibition: Family Photo Tree” (2020, Kanaz Forest of Creation, solo exhibition), “Asada Studio” (2020, PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO, solo exhibition), and “Watashi no Kazoku (My Family)” (2020, Hankyu Umeda Gallery, and 2021, Mitsubishi Estate Artium, solo exhibition). His publications include Asada-ke, NEW LIFE (AKAAKA Art Publishing), Kazoku Shinbun (Family Newspaper) (Gentosha Literary Publication), Hachinohe Review (BIJUTSU SHUPPAN-SHA), HOMEWORK: GRADUATION PHOTOGRAPH (AKAAKA Art Publishing), Album no chikara (AKAAKA Art Publishing), Asada Studio Mannen (Seigensha Art Publishing), and Asada Studio Sennen (AKAAKA Art Publishing). The movie The Asadas, based on his Asada-ke and Album no chikara, was released in 2020.

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