Gallery 916, Tokyo
This was the most inspiring exhibit of summer, the one that opened new possibilities in my own work. The inspiration wasn’t terribly radical. It was more like a sympathetic understanding of possibility, of seeing my work in Dodo’s, and his in mine, and realizing mine might one day look as interesting. I appreciated seeing how what would seem ordinary worked well, which suggested I can perhaps look again at such scenes when they present themselves. I saw many images which seemed excessively dark in their exposure and development, far more than I would be comfortable working with but suggesting that such images are not outside the range of possibility. Dodo created both posed and spontaneous street portraits, the former largely in rural communities, the latter in urban. Despite their somewhat repetitive appearance (of groups of people smiling at the camera), I began to appreciate the posed images for revealing the character of the photographer, someone able to convince large numbers of strangers to participate in his work. Two types of images made me want to try my own experiments: still life of the commonplace, stuff you might come home with in your pockets or in your bag; and images of half-things, cars or people, for example, shown only partially and inviting the viewer to fill in the rest.
The layout of the exhibit was incredibly simple and didn’t call attention to itself apart from the huge prints on the floor. The gallery is housed in what appears to be an old warehouse, which features floors of wide open space.
Gallery 916: http://gallery916.com/
Shunji Dodo at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunji_Dodo
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