Yutaka Takanashi is a revolutionary photographer best known for his fascination with the Tokyo during the 60s and 70s. Featuring the city in all it’s urban glory, his exhibition at the Henri Cartier-Bresson foundation holds the two contrasting collections: Toshi-e (towards the city) and Machi (the city) as well as a series on the Golden Gai Bars in the Shinjuku district.
The HCB gallery itself adds perspective to the collections. With the space set over three floors, visitors culminate in a wide gallery overlooking the school playground next door; the high rise office blocks giving a suitable backdrop to the stark white space. To really appreciate this exhibition, and how Takanashi has developed as a photographer, it is important to follow the natural order; clockwise for the first and second floor, sit and read a bit (or watch the children playing) on the third.
Called Takanashi’s ‘Scrap-picker’ mode, Toshi-e was originally published in Provoke, the avant-garde photography collective and magazine. The result of Takanashi’s early obsession with a poetic aesthetic, Toshi-e seeks to capture an urban message in a city where Hollywood stars are tacked to the back of toilet doors. But nothing is political here. The images captured are anonymous shots of the changing landscape of Tokyo, where tradition collides with pearly-white teeth.
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