Itaru Hirama

Min Tanaka – Locus Focus –

Mar 26 - Arp 25, 2008
Photo Gallery International

Itaru Hirama

Min Tanaka – Locus Focus –

Mar 26 - Arp 25, 2008
Photo Gallery International

  • ©Itaru Hirama

Itaru Hirama is a photographer who has made photographs of musicians in the contemporary music world; photographs in collaboration with poet, as well as portraits of people in his hometown Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture.

 

It was 20 years ago when Hirama was a student at university he became captivated by the dance by Min Tanaka. He had a chance to meet Tanaka again 20 years later at the still photograph project for the movie “La Maison de Himiko” in which Tanaka appeared. From 2006 Tanaka left theater to play “Locus Focus.” He has made travels around Japan and danced. He says about Locus Focus: “I don’t dance at places but dance the places.” Hirama invited Tanaka to Shiogama, and photographed Tanaka’s “Locus Focus” in 2007. The harbor, pine trees on the shore, cliffs, stone steps, ground, old houses, narrow streets, etc., Min Tanaka became blended with all those things, and became a part of landscape. Through photographing Tanaka’s “Locus Focus”, Hirama focuses Shiogama in which he was born and brought up, and he steps into a new ground. “The more I tried to face to Tanaka, the more I had to face to myself” says Hirama. He looks his own landscape of hometown as if he is guided by the presence of Min Tanaka.

 

At the exhibition, around 30 gelatin silver prints including some color prints, from photographs shown at Shiogama in October _ December 2007, as well as prints newly produced from a group of pictures taken in May and December 2007, are shown.

 

Itaru Hirama

Born in Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, 1963. Graduated from the Photography Department, College of Art, Nihon University, 1987.

Selected one-person exhibitions: “Motor Drive” Shibuya Parco Gallery (Tokyo 1996), “Itaru Hirama Exhibition of Photographs” Fureai ESP Shiogama (Shiogama 1999),Itaru Hirama and BIKKE Photograph Exhibition “Hi-Bi” FUMIYART Gallery (Tokyo 2000), “No Music, No Life” EX’REALM (Tokyo 2004), “Photograph Exhibition: Locus Focus / Min Tanaka + Itaru Hirama” Kanno Museum, birdo space, and Fureai ESP Shiogama (all venues are in Shiogama 2007). Publications include Motor Drive (Korinsha Press 1995), Hi-Bi (Media Factory 2000), Yoroshiku! Don’t forget me (Singpoosha 2003), I Love Mie-chan (Kawade Shobo Shinsha 2004), Sono Nukumori Ni You Ga Aru (Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan 2006).