谷口昌良『空を掴め ── 空像へ』      Book Design：木村稔将   Editor: Yutaka Kikutake Gallery Books      発行：赤々舎   Size： H288mm × W220mm   Page：100 pages   Binding：Cloth hardcover   Published in May 2023    ISBN：978-4-86541-170-6	¥ 3,500＋tax  国内送料無料！ 【国内／Domestic Shipping】  お支払い方法は、銀行振込、郵便振替、 クレジットカード支払い、PayPal、PayPay よりお選び頂けます。 【海外／International Shipping】 ＊ Please choose your area from the two below    　　　 Book + Asia shipping ¥6,400 JPY Book + World shipping ¥7,650 JPY

On Representational Emptiness

Akiyoshi Taniguchi

Kusho 空象 is a neologism coined by me made up of the characters 空 which in the Buddhist context connotes Emptiness, and 象 meaning form; shape; phenomenon. Joined together, the two-character compound means that all representations are Empty. Representations that are recognized to be "seen" or objects that are "seen things" are merely recognized by the mind as such and are not real images nor substantive. Photographs are entrusted with substance and discussed in such a manner but are in actuality, nothing more than mere virtual images. However, many of today's photographic works are overconfident in their materiality. If one hundred people see one apple, it becomes one hundred apples.

I am farsighted, and I took off my glasses and immersed myself in a blurry world to take pictures. Of course, using manual focus, I didn't know if the shot was in focus. Reflected on my retina was the scenery that only I could see, and so I tried pressing the shutter relying on my own five senses. I didn't know what I was shooting or what kind of details I saw, and yet, it felt good. When I look at the finished print at a later date, printed was "something reminiscent" of that reflection on the retina. But while that is the fact captured by the photograph, the question of what was taken is a stupid question. Such floating substances are understood in Buddhist philosophy as Impermanence. In other words, permanent substances do not exist at all.

One of the photographs in this has its appearance changed due to the human error of digital technology. The print burns as the paper (substance) turns into ash, and transforms into a jar of tears.

The main message of this series is: "representation is impermanence."

We can probably see from this analogy that everything is impermanent.

In particular, I wonder if artists continue to seek to go towards the truth that they cannot possibly grasp and therefore merely grasp Emptiness.

The representations captured by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce have a certain naiveite when taking into account the 200-year-old history of the modern technology of photography, but the wonderment born out of that naiveite is important for me. I took on this challenge with a similar perspective close to my heart. Wonderment that something has become captured in a photograph.

As the analog versus digital debate becomes less intense and with the camera industry moving forward in the trajectory that it is, perhaps it is worth reconsidering what is being accepted as a technological breakthrough. This is because with the advent of digital expression that is ever-changing the value of straight photography has been lost to the history of photography. It is at this moment that reached the end point of one "definition of photography."

I now am reminded of a major milestone in the history of photography, which began with Niépce's wonderment. And if Niépce had a digital camera today, how would he feel?

However, if Representation is Impermanence, then the aforementioned controversy may not be such a big one after all. Rather, photography will continue to expand beyond its boundaries into other mediums. At times it is a little sad that straight photography as it was in the past is being dismantled but then I remind myself that within the destiny of representation and synbolism is the expression of the persistence of the human spirit. And in this era of crossings and turning points I find myself seeking a return to Light.

Excerpts from the Afterword "Towards Kusho: Representational Emptiness" by Akiyoshi Taniguchi 

浜田涼『とぼとぼと』      Book Design：櫻井一輝      発行：赤々舎   Size： H252mm × W188mm   Page：160 pages   Binding：Hardcover   Published in May 2023    ISBN：978-4-86541-146-1	¥ 4,000＋tax  国内送料無料！ 【国内／Domestic Shipping】  お支払い方法は、銀行振込、郵便振替、 クレジットカード支払い、PayPal、PayPay よりお選び頂けます。 【海外／International Shipping】 ＊ Please choose your area from the two below    　　　 Book + Asia shipping ¥6,900 JPY Book + World shipping ¥8,150 JPY

tobotonoto (stroll around...)

Ryo Hamada

Ryo Hamada is an artist who, beginning in the 1990s up to the present day, explores the possibilities of what can be artistically expressed with photographs that are entirely out of focus. Because of the abstractness of this visual expression, not everyone may be able to determine, viewing her works, that "This is a photograph." More accurately, Hamada's works can be described as somewhere between a picture and a photograph. Although the works appear as halfway entities, they are all images photographed with a camera and, moreover, the artist does not rely on what is termed image processing but creates "blurred photographs" using only the functions of the camera lens. The images are undeniably photographs. But here the expectations of photographs that people have held thus far effortlessly fall away. What has fallen away? In a manner of speaking, what has fallen away is "truth." No, perhaps we should say "truth" that is gently beginning to vanish.

"This is strange, I'm not sure I understand it, but I guess I don't have to--if you can feel that way, then when there are other more complicated and abstruse things that you and the other person can't understand at all, even if you don't, as long as you feel like you kind of understand, that's pretty much enough I think."

Hamada herself does not use filters on her lenses or use image processing to transform images. She has followed her own rule, from the time she worked with film cameras, of photographing with lenses that blur the focus. Even after the transition to digital she felt that "There was no point for me personally in changing my approach then," and says she produces her photographic images without making any changes to them. 

The abstractness of Hamada's blurred photographs causes us to feel as if these pieces of someone else's daily life overlap with our own memories and experiences. I think the effect of blurring is also the possibility of access to others. When, where, and what are unclear, and yet you seem to have seen or sensed something, or perhaps you are mistaken and it is just your imagination.

Excerpts from the text "Blurred Photographs: The Artistic Expression of Ryo Hamada"

by Tetsuro Ishida (Curator, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)

『ノノ かみと布の原郷』       Book Concept：工藝ぱんくす舎（前田征紀、石井すみ子）   Book Design：吉村麻紀   表紙和紙：中村 功      発行：赤々舎   Size： H265 mm × W210 mm   Page：176 pages   Binding：Hardcover with Kozo tree paper   Published in March 2023    ISBN：978-4-86541-168-3	¥ 5,000＋tax  国内送料無料！ 【国内／Domestic Shipping】  お支払い方法は、銀行振込、郵便振替、 クレジットカード支払い、PayPal、PayPay よりお選び頂けます。 【海外／International Shipping】 ＊ Please choose your area from the two below    　　　 Book + Asia shipping ¥8,500 JPY Book + World shipping ¥10,350 JPY

NONO a native spirit of Kami and Cloth

COSMIC WONDER with Kogei Punks Sha

This publication is the catalogue of the exhibition "NONO a native spirit of Kami and Cloth" by COSMIC WONDER with Kogei Punks Sha. The exhibition was held at the Shimane Iwami Art Museum in March 2021. In preparation for the exhibit, Kogei Punks Sha spent two years traveling around Japan and researching native fabrics, handmade papers, and sites where ancient spirits dwell. The exhibition and this catalogue were shaped by their unique interpretations of spirituality.

In the past, people spun fibers from plants taken from their immediate surroundings, making fabrics, and then constructing clothing and tools to sustain their lives.

These native fabrics can be made from Fuji (wisteria), Kuzu (kudzu), Kaji tree (paper mulberry), Kozo tree (paper mulberry), Taima (hemp), Choma (ramie), Shina (linden), Basho (banana), and Ohyo (elm), to name a few deeply reflect the culture unique to each area and the practices nurtured them. Making native fabrics by hand starts with producing the fiber, which requires much perseverance, and one cannot imagine how much work it would take if it were done today. Such precious fabrics have been highly regarded and cherished in their home regions. In Shimane, where there is a tradition of fuji-ori (wisteria weaving), the worn boro fabric was battered back to pulp. When it is used to the end, nothing goes to waste. Today, we have come to a stage where we need to reevaluate the relationship we have between nature and man.

What do they show us now, these fabrics that exist from the times we were nurtured by the nature around us and cherished what we had? In present times, where there is an abundance of information, the future options we can choose from may be reflected in the very presence of these native fabrics and handmade papers.

The catalogue is offset printed with additional stencil printing. The cover is letterpress printed on washi (paper) by Isao Nakamura of the Haigyu Area, Tokushima Prefecture, Also included is a special insert of washi made of fibers from beaten taima-fu (hemp cloth) by Takaharu Maeda of Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture.

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Related Exhibiton

コズミックワンダーと工藝ぱんくす舎 「ノノ かみと布の原郷」 図録出版記念展 会期：2023年5月27日（土）〜 6月4日（日） 時間：11:00～18:00 会場：gallery白田（京都府船井郡京丹波町森山田7） コズミックワンダーと工藝ぱんくす舎 ノノ かみと布の原郷 会期 : 2021年 3月20日（土・祝）- 5月16日（日） 会場：島根県立石見美術館 展示室C（島根県芸術文化センター「グラントワ」内）

島根半島沖泊地区、漁の乾燥小屋 （藤布の漁網が使われていたと思われる昭和20-30年頃の風景）

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Artist Information 

COSMIC WONDER 

1997年、前田征紀を主宰として設立。「精神に作用する波動」としての衣服、美術、書籍など多岐にわたる表現領域により展開。2007年、東京・南青山に「Center for COSMIC WONDER」を開設、活動と発表の拠点とする。2016年より京都・美山の重要伝統的建造物群保存地区の古民家と工場跡を製作スタジオにする。主な展覧会として、2017 年に「COSMIC WONDER 充溢する光」（島根県立石見美術館）、2019年に「COSMIC WONDER Harmonic Meditation」（香港・Taka Ishii Galley）を開催。

工藝ぱんくす舎

前田征紀と石井すみ子による精神の空間を創造する美術ユニット。工藝デザイナーの石井は手仕事の可能性を作り手と共に考え、紹介する場とし京都・京丹波にgallery 白田を開廊。2015年「ミエルかみ」展（京都・ gallery 白田）における「かみのひかりのあわ水会」を契機に工藝ぱんくす舎を結成。手漉きの紙、自然布について研究と制作を行う。主な展覧会として、2016年「お水えいわみのかみとみず」（島根県立石見美術館）、2017年「かみ」（銀座・資生堂ギャラリー）、2021年「ノノかみと布の原郷」（島根県立石見美術館）を開催。

COSMIC WONDER

COSMIC WONDER was founded in 1997 by Yukinori Maeda. COSMIC WONDER is a conceptual project comprising various modes of expression from clothing, artwork and publishing to performance. In 2007, The "Center for COSMIC WONDER," located in Minami Aoyama, Tokyo, functions as a site for activities and presentations. In 2016 COSMIC WONDER moved its studio to a traditional house and workshop in Miyama, a remote village in the mountains north of Kyoto, which is designated as a national preservation district of historic buildings. Exhibition include:"COSMIC WONDER: Lightness of Light" at the Iwami Art Museum (2017),"COSMIC WONDER Harmonic Meditation" at Taka Ishii Gallery, Hong Kong (2019).

Kogei Punks Sha

Kogei Punks Sha is an artistic unit creating space for human spirit. Formed by Yukinori Maeda and Sumiko Ishii. (Founder of gallery hakuden and Craft designer). Ishii opened gallery hakuden in Kyotamba, Kyoto, as a place to think about and introduce the possibilities of handmade work together with the artists. In 2015,"Kami-no-hikari-no-awa Water Ceremony" at the "MIERU kami" exhibition (gallery hakuden, Kyoto) was the occasion to form Kogei Punks Sha. We researches and produces handmade paper and native cloths. Exhibition include:"Omizue: Iwamino-kamito- mizu" at Iwami Art Museum (2016) and "Kami" at SHISEIDO GALLERY, Ginza (2017),"NONO a native spirit of Kami and Cloth" at the Iwami Art Museum (2021).

菅野純『Planet Fukushima』       Book Design：尾中俊介（Calamari Inc.）       発行：赤々舎   Size： H182mm × W257mm   Page：304 pages （152pages ＋ 152pages）   Binding：左右両側スイス装、コデックス製   Published in March 2023    ISBN：978-4-86541-162-1	¥ 7,000＋tax  国内送料無料！ 【国内／Domestic Shipping】  お支払い方法は、銀行振込、郵便振替、 クレジットカード支払い、PayPal、PayPay よりお選び頂けます。 【海外／International Shipping】 ＊ Please choose your area from the two below    　　　 Book + Asia shipping ¥10,850 JPY Book + World shipping ¥12,550 JPY

Planet Fukushima

Kanno Jun

"I think it was around December 29 or 30, during the last week of 2015, when I was driving from Soma to Date, the city where my parents live. Route 115 was usually thronged with vehicles due to the ongoing decontamination work, but during the New Year holidays there was hardly any traffic on the road, and it had gone back to what it used to be, a mountain pass meandering quietly through the peaks. 

Driving in an unfamiliar environment was a bit disconcerting, and since it was already late in the afternoon, I decided to take a shortcut along a narrow side road, indicated by the car navigation system, in order to get over the mountains before it got dark. As soon as I got on the road, I saw a large number of flexible container bags ahead of me and reflexively got out of the car to take a photo. However, even with a 24mm wide-angle lens I could not capture the entire scene, so I decided to climb up a nearby mountainside. 

The uphill slope was across from a flexible container bag storage area, and when I got to the top, the view below became clear. It was like a vast empire sprawling across a hidden mountainous region. The grid-like streets reminded me of ancient northern cities, the loose grid layout was like a labyrinth extending between houses, and I felt it would not be strange if smoke from evening fires was rising here and there. The peculiar outlines of white fences seemed somehow meaningful, and the flexible container bags dusted with fine grains of snow began looking to me like the scales of fish. I named the place "Fat Fish," and my newfound duties as its sentinel began.

It was in early May 2011 when I returned to my parents' house for the first time after the disaster, and at that time I was still struggling to grasp the seriousness of the situation. I had never thought much about radiation except in the context of war or nuclear weapons, my knowledge of it was vague, and even when I tried to imagine the characteristics of radioactive substances, which are odorless and invisible, it was difficult to come to grips with them.

A few days after I returned to my hometown, the dosimeter that I had long been eagerly waiting for, as production had not kept pace with demand, finally arrived, and I also began feeling the severity of the situation firsthand. My vision began to change in a very strange way, with each scene before my eyes composed of three layers: foreground, middle ground, and background. You might even call them three different dimensions. For example, suppose there was a person in front of me and a mountain in the distance. In the past, both of them would have existed in the same space at the same time. However, the nuclear accident caused the foreign substance called radioactive contamination (in the middle ground) to come between the person in the foreground and the mountain in the background, and the two were separated off into completely different dimensions. Somewhere along the way, a new layer (close-range view) was added between the person (foreground) and the camera lens, and I became aware of the space before me in layers, like those in Photoshop. If the dosimeter reading was unexpectedly high, the space behind the lens, that is, the space I (and the camera) occupied, formed one additional layer (perhaps as a barrier), and before I knew it, another space behind me, separate from the one occupied by me and the camera, was pressing against my back. I felt a sense of discomfort as if I had been gotten sucked into one of many layers in a Photoshop image on a computer monitor. 

From the many people I have met over the past 10 years, I have learned that each person has a different sense of time. For some it goes fast, for some slow, for some it is fragmented, and for some things have already gone back to how they were before the disaster. People's sense of time can differ depending on the type and scale of the disaster they experienced, as in the difference between coastal areas where tsunami damage is visible and inland areas where radiation damage is severe. There are also major differences between adults and children. Things also depend on the jobs people do. Of course, it is only natural that concepts of time and feelings about the disaster differ from person to person in regions outside of Fukushima. In Fukushima, though the presence of this invisible foreign substance has undoubtedly had some effect (even if only temporarily) on people's sense of time.

The middle ground is at the center, and there are many layers attached to it on either side. And there is a new space, seen from above, that of the "Fat Fish" that I encountered by chance. The layers seem to me to be fragmented and isolated, each ticking away time in its own way, without any rhyme or reason."

Extracted & Reconstructed from the text 

"Planet Fukushima" by Kanno Jun