Photobook-Michael Kenna-Japan: A Love Story

£70.00

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Photobook-Michael Kenna-Japan: A Love Story (Signed)

Hardback
Pages: 134
Size: 33 x 25.4 cm
Published: 2024
Publisher: NAZRAELI
Stock number: RG2298/GNO1
Price: £70 + P&P

Published to coincide with a major 2024 traveling exhibition in Tokyo, Los Angeles and London, this gorgeous new monograph presents 100 of Michael Kenna’s most iconic photographs of the Japanese landscape, many published here for the first time. A perfect pairing of artist and subject, these photographs of Japan comprise perhaps Kenna’s best known body of work and have been the subject of countless exhibitions throughout the world. Michael Kenna first visited Japan in 1987 on the event of his inaugural exhibition there, and he has returned dozens of time and made thousands of photographs throughout the country’s vast and incredibly varied landscape. Our earlier monographs Japan and Hokkaido have been out of print for many years, so we are thrilled to announce this important new publication that includes work spanning Kenna’s decades-long love affair with the country. Japan / A Love Story is beautifully printed in duotone on natural coated art paper and quarter bound in linen and silk. It opens with an essay in Japanese and English by the renowned critic and historian Kohtaro Iizawa.

“For Michael Kenna’s 2003 publication, Japan, I contributed an essay suggesting that his photographs could be read as visual haikus. Looking at the work in this new book, perhaps the definitive collection of Kenna’s Japan photographs, I feel that these same components are still there. And yet, on viewing his work afresh, I realize that while he does incorporate a Japanese sense of beauty and perspective, he has now fused his own Western aesthetic with a new Eastern sensibility, awakened by his visual experiences in Japan.” — From the Introduction by Kohtaro Iizawa

“Japan has a long and rich tradition of reciprocal gift giving. I have been the grateful recipient of so much over so many years in Japan, and I know that I will never be able to give back in equal measure. I hope this work can be seen as a small token of my desire to do so. I also hope this work can be viewed as a homage to Japan and that it will serve to symbolize my immense ongoing appreciation and deep gratitude for this beautiful and mysterious country.” — From the Afterword by Michael Kenna

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Michael Kenna is a British photographer best known for his black-and-white images of unpopulated landscapes and urban scenes. Often employing long exposure times that he further emphasizes in the dark room, Kenna’s work is both picturesque and mysterious. “You can’t always see what’s otherwise noticeable during the day,” he has explained. “With long exposures, you can photograph what the human eye is incapable of seeing.” Throughout his focused practice, Kenna is more inspired by earlier photographers, such as Eugène Atget and Alfred Stieglitz, than by his contemporaries.

Born in 1953 in Lancashire, England, he originally intended on becoming a priest, but was ultimately drawn to art. He attend the London College of Printing, where he learned commercial photography techniques. Kenna moved to San Francisco in 1977 and began exhibiting in local galleries, developing his hallmark subject matter and high-contrast black-and-white aesthetic. He attributes his technical breakthroughs in the medium to his time spent working as a printing assistant for the famed photographer Ruth Bernhard.

Today, Kenna’s works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, among others. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.

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