Review: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

While this is a lovely facility in an upscale neighborhood, I was disappointed on three counts.  The first seems to be rather common to Japan, the prohibition of photographing exhibitions.  I would have liked to have taken an image or two for this blog.  I’ve been to exhibits that actually encourage the taking and sharing of images on social media as a form of free advertisement.  It makes for a more interactive experience of art than simply acting as a passive consumer/viewer.  Secondly, there is no permanent display.  Apparently there used to be, but it was long ago removed.  And lastly, there was no display during my visit of Japanese photography.  Fortunately, I found an excellent exhibit of a Japanese photographer -- photography permitted -- at Gallery 916.

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Review: F11 Photography Museum, Hong Kong

F11 exterior

In preparation for this month’s visit to Hong Kong, I checked online to see if the city had a photography museum.  There is in fact a lovely new facility housed in a recently refurbished early 20th century building, but viewable only by appointment, and only on certain days of the week.  Planning ahead was fortunate and is imperative if you don’t want to miss a visit.

F11 is one of the few private museums in Hong Kong and the only one dedicated to photography.  At present there is no permanent exhibit apart from the Leica camera collection, some pieces of which are rotated on a regular basis.  Photo exhibits are held several times a year, running from a week to a couple of months.  On display during my visit was a collection of 85 black-and-white images by Swiss photographer Werner Bischof taken during his one and only 1952 visit to Hong Kong.  These were what you might think of as street or travel photography, impressionistic images of a Westerner’s first visit to Hong Kong.  Perhaps a third of the images exhibited were noteworthy, images I would look at more carefully or care to revisit.  The remainder were perhaps notable 50 years ago; today they appear rather pedestrian (though may be of great historic value, as revealed in the following paragraph).   Included in the exhibit were several period artefacts, including magazines featuring Bischof’s images, a guide to Hong Kong, and a horse-racing guide, among others.