Special ExhibitionTAIJI MATSUE gazetteer
December 8, 2018–February 24, 2019
Over the years, Taiji Matsue (born in Tokyo in 1963) has traveled all over the world and taken photographs of various areas. Matsue has persistently focused on the surface of the land or earth, including mountains with exposed rocks, woodlands with a thick growth of trees, cities with rows of high-rise buildings, and streets lined with old houses. By omitting horizon lines from his compositions and following a self-imposing rule that he always shoot in direct light to avoid producing shadows, Matsue has constantly pursued a planar quality that is the true essence of photography. In this way, he carefully eliminates contrast, depth, and any distinction between the center and the periphery, to create pictures in which all of the visible elements are treated equally.
Matsue, who has produced monochrome photographs since the 1980s, made his first color photo book in 2005. While incorporating new techniques, which are constantly changing due to technological advances, including new types of photographic equipment and developing methods, Matsue has continually endeavored to create new kinds of photographs. The titles of his works make use of geographical names and city codes. This exhibition, gazetteer (i.e., an index of geographical information), serves as the first retrospective of Matsue’s career. It systematically presents Matsue’s work, a collection of photographs bearing the names of places throughout the world, from his earliest to his most recent efforts.
Date | December 8-February 24, 2019 |
Hours | 10:00-17:00 (Last admission 16:30) |
Closed | Mondays (except Dec.24, Jan. 14 and Feb.11) and Dec.25, from Dec.27 to Jan.1, Jan.15 and Feb.12 |
Admission | Adults 1,000 (800) yen, University students 700 (600) yen, High school students and seniors [65 and over] 500 (400) yen *Figures in parentheses: Advance purchase and groups of 30 or more *Junior high school students and younger: Free admission |
Organized by | Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, The Chugoku Shimbun |
Special sponsor | Frameman Inc. |
Sponsored by | COLOR SCIENCE LABO CO., LTD., Nikon Imaging Japan Inc. |
In cooperation with | TARO NASU |
Under the auspices of | Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima Municipal Board of Education, Hiroshima FM Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Onomichi FM Broad Casting Co., Ltd. |
Private collection
Private collection
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art