PHOTO:Daisuke Yokota-Matter
Daisuke Yokota is one of the rising stars of the International photography scene, and the leading name in a new generation of Japanese artists. He has a long, meticulous and demanding approach to photography, the kind of work only an obsessive would embark on. Daisuke Yokota studied Photography at Nippon Photography Institute in Tokyo. As the winner of the first Outset|Unseen Exhibition Fund at Unseen Photo Fair 2013, he presented a solo exhibition at Foam in Amsterdam, in 2014 with a series of his work that has been added to the museum collection. Yokota was chosen as the winner of the 10th Foam Paul Huf Award in 2016.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Foam Archive
Daisuke Yokota in his solo exhibition “Matter” at Foam presents new three-dimensional work. Three room filling installations revolve around the tactile aspects of photography, in which the outcome of the artwork is not determined by the camera, but by experiments with the material forms of the medium. Previously in his artistic practice Yokota would re-use images that he took years ago, but that keep re-appearing in different ways through various analogue and digital processes. In these new works it’s not the image that keeps being reinvented, but the physical photo print and film. In Aichi Triennial held in August 2016, Daisuke Yokota has presented to the public an immense installation using 100,000 photographic prints coated in wax. In this exhibition, Yokota focuses on the aspect of volume and material of photography, pushing the medium and its perception forward into ever more original directions. One of the installations entails an enlarged print of a film roll directly exposed without interference of the camera. This long trail is draped throughout the exhibition room and waxed on site. In another installation Yokota projects the outcome of darkroom experiments with unorthodox developing processes on the walls. A printer will slowly print these chemical distortions of the negative. In his latest work “Matter/Burn Out”, Yokota sets fire to his own installation prints at an abandoned construction site in China. The resulting heaps of burnt material are documented by his camera and the images are recycled into a new autonomous artwork in the installation “Matter/Vomit”. The exhibition room filled with burnt matter reflects on the overflow of images we are confronted with on a daily basis and the growing indifference among recipients.
Info: Foam, Keizersgracht 609, Amsterdam, Duration 17/3-4/6/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00, www.foam.org
