13 Takes: Heavy Light, Post 1990 Photo and Video from Japan (ICP, New York)

Designed to showcase the work of video artists and photographers who came of age after the 1990 Asian crisis, Heavy Light features some 80 works by the 13 participating artists: Makoto Aida, Naoya Hatakeyama, Naoki Kajitani, Hiroh Kikai, Midori Komatsubara, Yukio Nakagawa, Asako Narahashi, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Tomoko Sawada, Risaku Suzuki, Miwa Yanagi, Kenji Yanobe, and Masayuki Yoshinaga.

The show is organized under 4 themes:

• Surfaces of the World: Naoya Hatakeyama "offers a meditation on the human consumption of nature"

• Transformations of Tradition (Risaku Suzuki "conceives his photographic projects as book-length sequences of images. His Kumano series trace the artist’s journey from Tokyo, where he lives and works, to his home town of Kumano at the time of the winter fire ritual"

• Costume and Self-Display: Masayuki Yoshinaga "photographs Japan’s subcultural groups, portraying the street-fashion teenagers of Harajuku, leather-clad motorcycle gangs, and young members of Tokyo’s yakusa (gangster) clans"

• The Child as Icon: Kenji Yanobe "creates elaborate sculptural objects and installations that testify to his childhood fascination with manga (Japanese comics), anime, and sci-fi films"

This event at the International Center of Photography in New York runs until September 7, 2008.

Another New-York/ Tokyo connection for Tokyo Thursdays #43

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