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  ©Kikuji Kawada

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  ©Kikuji Kawada

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PGI is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Kikuji Kawada’s newest work “Last Things” starting with a new year of 2016.

“The Map”(1965), perhaps Kawada’s best-known work, is metaphor that encodes the collective unconscious memory of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Since then he continues to challenge our intellect with fresh and clairvoyant images.

From the end of 2014, “The Map” was shown at Tate Modern as part of their breathtaking exhibition “Conflict, Time, Photography”.  Almost 90 pieces were on the wall, amazingly it was the first time that almost all of images from The Map were in display at once.
Kawada’s impressive series “The Last Cosmology” was also held at L. Parker Stephenson Photography in New York and at Michael Hoppen Gallery in London around the same time. British publisher MACK published new design and new selection of “The Last Cosmology” book that was originally published in 1995. Kawada was pleased to re-publish and said it is truly-new interpretation of this series. 
Important interview of Kawada by Ryuichi Kaneko about Kawada’s entire work on Aperture magazine #219 “Tokyo”.

For more than 10 years counting from 2002, Kawada has been continuing the work on the theme of phenomena emerging in highly civilized city. PGI has held two exhibitions such as “World’s End” in 2010 and “2011-phenomena” in 2012 from Phenomena series. “Last Things” is the third title and is exactly a compilation of the theme of “phenomena”.

A great book of Paul Auster “In the country of Last Things” provided impetus for challenging this title, as he said.
“Sense of danger” that we can see in his photographs is what he admirably metamorphosed from insignificant moments.
With small titles such as, and, Kawada shows a conflict that our civilized society is now facing. There is a torrential downpour stipples on the thick polymer roofs and the photographer named those stipples “Polymer Grain”. Photographers always observe like a peeping Tom and find the phantom in the subsistent aspect.

During the process of shooting and printing, Things; specific faces and/or places are changed into abstract objects as Kawada says “From the objects in my photographs, mysterious things appear like a phantom, I call them “Last Things”

Kikuji Kawada
Born in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan in 1933. Kawada co-founded the VIVO(1959-1961) photographic collective in 1959.
He was one of the fifteen artists selected for the “New Japanese Photography” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1974.
Selected Recent One-Person Exhibition: “ZENO – The Last Cosmology” (PGI 1996), “Car Maniac” (PGI 1998), “Eureka” (PGI 2001), “Kikuji Kawada: Theatrum Mundi” (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photograph, Tokyo 2003), “The Map 1960-1965” (PGI 2004), “Kikuji Kawada: Eureka/ Multigraph” (Shadai Gallery, Tokyo Polytechnic University, 2005), “Invisible City” (PGI 2006), “ATLAS 1998-2006” (Epsite Tokyo, 2006), “Remote Past: Memoir 1951-1966” (PGI 2008), “World’s End” (PGI 2010), “Nikko – A Parable” (PGI 2011), “2011-phenomena” (PGI 2013), “The Last Cosmology” (L. PARKER STEPEHENSON PHOTOGRAPHS 2014), “The Last Cosmology” (Michael Hoppen Gallery 2014).

Selected Group Exhibition: “New Japanese Photography” (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1974), “Japon des Avant-Gardes 1910-1970” (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1986), “The history of Japanese Photography” (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2003 ), “Conflict, Time, Photography” (Tate Modern, 2014), “In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11” (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2015)
Collections: Museum of Modern Art New York, Museum of Fine Art Houston, Museum of Fine Art Boston, Tate Modern, SF Museum of Modern Art, The National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, Tokyo Polytechnic University, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Exhibitions at PGI