Photo: Ryuichi Ishikawa, ZK.050 Naha, 2012.
As part of his first exhibition in the UK, Japanese photographer Ryuichi Ishikawa will be in conversation with art historian and curator Christine Eyene.
The discussion will address Ishikawa’s inspiration from diverse art forms, including music and dance, his early practice and more recent work, his gaze and multifaceted portraiture of his hometown of Okinawa, Japan’s southernmost islands. A slideshow illustrating the conversation will present Ishikawa’s early images, as well as videos dating from the time of his participation to Seiryu Shiba’s Ryukyu contemporary dance company, as a photographer and dancer.
zkop: a blessing in disguise, Ryuichi Ishikawa’s exhibition at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, is a selection from Okinawan Portraits (2010-2012) and A Grand Polyphony (2014), two publications that turned the young photographer into an instant sensation in Japan and earned him the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award in 2015. The appeal of Ishikawa’s works lies in the spontaneity and raw aesthetics with which he depicts life in Okinawa, more particularly alternative youth and underground cultures, and marginalised existence.
Copies of his publications will be available for sale during the evening, including Adrenamix, Tokyo: akaaka-sha, 2015 and Okinawan Portraits 2012-2016, Tokyo: akaaka sha, 2016.
zkop: a blessing in disguise continues at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix to 15 March 2018.
Ryuichi Ishikawa
b. 1984 in Okinawa, Japan. Lives and works in Okinawa.
Hailed as one of the most prominent emerging photographers in Japan, Ishikawa has won several prestigious photography awards of his country including the Kimura Ihei Award within ten years of toying with a second-hand camera. A self-taught photographer, Ishikawa was mentored by Tetsushi Yuzaki and also participated in the 3rd Shomei Tomatsu Digital Photography Workshop. He has had several solo and group exhibitions in numerous venues including Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, Okinawa; Atsuko Barouh and Nikon Salon, Tokyo.
Christine Eyene is an art historian, critic and curator. She is curator of the next Summer of Photography 2018 at Bozar, Brussels and artistic director of the 4th International Biennial of Casablanca. A research fellow in contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire, her projects are multidisciplinary in scope and her interests include diverse cultural representations in arts, gendered art discourses, non-object-based art practices notably sound art, urban cultures and socially-engaged practices.
Ryuichi Ishikawa in conversation with Christine Eyene
Thursday 8 March 2018, 6.30-8.30pm
Free event.
Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix
19 Goulston Street
London E1 7TP
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