One of the things that photography made possible was the viewing once again of events that have passed. This special character of photography is so self-evident that we are rarely conscious of it, but it plays a key role for a variety of photographers and their work. When Hiroshi Sugimoto took the paper negatives of William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, and made new prints based on his own interpretation, he shined new light on images from the past. Over the course of twenty years, Seiichi Furuya has continually re-edited portraits of his wife, who took her own life in East Berlin; the process has been a means of confronting the past. Likewise, since the advent of photography in the 19th century, portraits of the deceased were often made into accessories or combined with locks of hair, to be treasured by families in remembrance of their loved ones.

This exhibition will feature photographs ranging from the anonymous photographers and craftsmen of over a century ago, to the work of contemporary artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Taiji Matsue, Yuka Kimura, and Rika Noguchi. It will explore the theme of 're-encounters' through photography in a variety of dimensions.

*image(left)
Izu, 1978 (2006)
© Seiichi Furuya

Courtesy of Izu Photo Museum