Kan Azuma: A Matter of Place - A solo exhibition of Japanese photographer Kan Azuma
Explore Kan Azuma's poetic, lyrical and contemplative interpretation of the Canadian landscape through the lens of migration and the diaspora in the 1970s
OTTAWA, ON, March 4, 2024 /CNW/ - Until June 16, 2024, the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) presents Kan Azuma: A Matter of Place, an exhibition devoted to Japanese photographer Kan Azuma. More than 160 photographic works from the NGC's collection, as well as archival materials from the NGC's Library and Archives, allow us to visualize the artist's poetic and contemplative interpretation of the Canadian landscape, and his intimate lived experiences with his surroundings and the places he visited in Canada, the United States and Japan, from the late 1960s until he stopped making photographs in the early 2000s.
"Kan Azuma's photographic works offer us his poignant artistic vision of the Canadian landscape through the lens of migration and the diaspora in the 1970s, and we are proud to share it with the public," said Jean-François Bélisle, Director and CEO, National Gallery of Canada. "We are very grateful for the generous donation he made to the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives in 2023 of his archives of more than 300 working prints, contact sheets, negatives and notes and of which a sampling is on view in the main exhibition."
Curated by Andrea Kunard, Senior Curator, and Euijung McGillis, Assistant Curator, NGC Photographs Collection, the exhibition presents works drawn from the Gallery's collection, including Azuma's significant body of work,?Erosion?(1973), featuring Point Pelee National Park in southwestern Ontario.
Regarding his photographs for the Erosion series, Kan Azuma said: ''The photos weren't meant to be viewed individually. Instead, I wanted viewers to feel the anxiety I had back then through the entire sequence. I intended to create a rhyme-like rhythm, as in a poem, through the sequence of photos. Individually, none of the photos in the Erosion series are poems. But together they become one.''
In addition to the works on display in the exhibition space (C218), two photographic enlargements from the series 88 Shrines Pilgrimage are on display on the mezzanine level of the Fred & Elizabeth Fountain Garden Court. Three other enlargements from the series are on view along the staircase exterior of the exhibition space.
Born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946, Kan Azuma studied photography in Tokyo in the mid-1960s before coming to Canada in 1970, at the age of 24. He returned to Japan in 1980 and retired from photography in the early 2000s at the age of 55.
Azuma's photographic style was greatly inspired by his mentor Ikk? Narahara (1931?2020) and by Daid? Moriyama (b. 1938). Their influence was significant in defining contemporary Japanese photography. These artists used a photographic style known as are-bure-boke, i.e., grainy, blurred and out of focus, to convey a sense of immediacy in the experience of reality.
Kan Azuma's works have been celebrated in several group exhibitions, including Pilgrimage (1974), Sights of History (1980), and Bringing to Order: Form and Expression in Canadian Photographic Practice (2002). His photographs have also been featured in an Italian photo magazine Nuova Fotografia in 1976.
Kan Azuma in the ByWard Market
Canadian Heritage presents an outdoor exhibition featuring 12 photographic works from the series Dodge Away (c. 1975) by Kan Azuma, in collaboration with the NGC. It is on view in the Clarendon Court, located in the ByWard Market from March 1, 2024, until March 31, 2025.
Public programming
The public is invited to Meet the Curators for a tour of the exhibition. Date and time soon to be announced. Guided tours and creative activities as part of the Free Thursday Night programming, including the creation of atmospheric watercolour landscapes inspired by the works of Azuma are scheduled. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
Kan Azuma: A Matter of Place is supported by the Scotiabank Photography Program and organized by the National Gallery of Canada. The NGC thanks the Mitsui Canada Foundation and the Japan Foundation for their support and the Embassy of Japan in Canada for their participation.
About the National Gallery of Canada
Ankosé | Everything is Connected | Tout est relié
The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) is dedicated to amplifying voices through art and extending the reach and breadth of its collection, exhibitions program, and public activities to represent all Canadians, while centring Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Ankosé?an Anishinaabemowin word that means "everything is connected"?reflects the Gallery's mission to create dynamic experiences that open hearts and minds, and allow for new ways of seeing ourselves, one another, and our diverse histories, through the visual arts. NGC is home to a rich contemporary Indigenous international art collection, as well as important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian and European art from the 14th to the 21st century. Founded in 1880, NGC has played a key role in Canadian culture for more than 140 years. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
SOURCE National Gallery of Canada
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