Light and Shadow:First There Was Light

First Encounters with Light in Photographic Art

Dec. 23, 2006—Feb. 18, 2007

• Dec. 23, 2006—Feb. 18, 2007
• Closed Monday(Tuesday if Monday is a national holiday) ,from December 29,2006 to January 1,2007
• Admission：Adults ￥500(400)／College Students ￥400(320)／High School and Junior Hight School Students, Over 65 ￥250(200)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the vital focus of photographic culture in Japan, has as its mission collecting, interpreting, and exhibiting photographs and other images. Our efforts in our first ten years have included introducing a wide range of contemporary photographers and contemporary artists working in the medium of photography through exhibitions and other events, based on the interrelationships between photography and video or cinema and themes spanning the domains of art and photography.
Now, a decade after the museum first opened its doors, Light and Shadow: First There Was Light takes us back to a fundamental theme, the very starting point of photographic technique: light and its absence, shadow. This exhibition will explore a variety of modes of photographic expression, from the beginnings of photography to today’s digital photography, from many points of view. The exhibition will include photographs, visual works, and reference materials from the museum collection, including work by László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Ei-kyu and Daido Moriyama, as well as new work by photographers and artists at the vanguard of the arts today, including Saara Ekström, Kunié Sugiura, Asuka Katagiri, Shigenobu Yoshida and Yuji Ono. These works show us changing values and new possibilities in photographic images.


 

left）Man Ray Autoportrait, c1930-33
right）Sugiura Kunie from the series The Artist Papers, Daido Moriyama, 2006 

 

left）Saara Eketom from the series Grotesque & Arabesque, 2005
raigt）Yamazaki Hiroshi from the series Heliography 1978