1978

This group exhibition features works from the collection of ZEIT-FOTO SALON, Japan’s first commercial gallery dedicated exclusively to photography, founded by the late Etsuro Ishihara. Titled “1978” in homage to the year the gallery was established, the exhibition pays tribute to Ishihara, who devoted himself tirelessly to spreading the concept of “photography as art” in Japan, as well as discovering new Japanese artists. The gallery space will bring together works by 18 photographers represented by Ishihara, including Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Kazuo Kitai, all of whom were leading practitioners at the time, as well as Toshio Shibata, Naoya Hatakeyama, and Taiji Matsue, who were then emerging artists and subsequently went on to win the Kimura Ihei Award. At a time when digitized images flood our lives and fake images run rampant, we hope this exhibition will serve as an opportunity to return to a form of photography that emerged out of a sense of friction and conflict with reality.