PHOTO:Tokyo Rumando – I’m only happy when I’m naked
Tokyo Rumando has started to photograph herself based on her modeling experiences for movies and magazines since 2005. She pursues expressions which are spontaneous, yet emerge from her own experiences. Self-taught, she mainly photographs her self-nude portraits and portraits of Rakugo artists, she considers her photographic practice as an “Input to rebuild a new self”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Taka Ishii Gallery Archive
Tokyo Rumando in her solo exhibition “I’m only happy when I’m naked,” at Taka Ishii Gallery in Paris, presents 8 photographs from her latest series “Orphee” and a selection of 100 Polaroids. Tokyo Rumando works right at the edge of the slippery boundary between the sexualisation of the female form in Japanese photography and the rising wave of so-called ‘Girlie photographers’ in Japan. Although historically there have been relatively few famous women photographers in Japan, Rumando’s generation have taken over the dark, eroticised imagery associated with the work of male photographers like Nobuyoshi Araki, to produce their own visions of sexuality and intimacy that challenge gender boundaries. In “Orphée” (2014), the artist staged different scenes and dressed up to play different female roles including innocent young girl, wild blonde woman, sadomasochist with leather wear. In most of these scenes, she is naked and seems fragile. The reflections from the mirror reveal imagined, surrealistic scenes that represent her memories, fantasy, fear and pain. The artist uses the mirror as a chronological border between past, present and future, thus the images serve to paradoxically reveal that the past and present can coexist ceaselessly. The exhibition title “I’m only happy when I’m naked” has also been a key phrase of her works ever since she made her debut with “REST 3000~ STAY 5000~” (2012), a series of images photographed in 20 Japanese love hotels that combine elements of reality and fiction. On the surface, Japan is a well-ordered, clean society. Tokyo Rumando`s photographs take us through the walls into a very private world, where fulfilment, excitement, fantasy and love is sought within the vast metropolis of Tokyo. Her Polaroids follow this theme, and further develop her desire to fill her works with madness by accumulating a numerous array of images and cramming them into a single space.
Info: Taka Ishii Gallery Photography Paris, 119 rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, Duration: 30/6-27/8/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-19:00, www.takaishiigallery.com
