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 curator: Daniel Šperl

A photographic exhibition by Japanese photographer Hitomi Satō subjectively captures vanishing situations      in Tokyo, New York, Havana and Stockholm. Thirteen photographs are just a small example of her work, yet this collection is a personal testimony of the world around her. Her Japanese approach to photography is visible     on several levels. We Europeans try to fill up and smooth over the space in a photograph to make it holistic and perfect. Japanese culture, which is also affected by Zen Buddhism, often leaves works unfinished to let a person fantasise. This is also obvious in the history of Japanese photography, in which some documentary photography leaned towards subjectivity already in the 1960s. Works by photographers such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Takuma Nakahira, Daidō Moriyama and Yutaka Takanashi, who are also known in our country, had a great impact on   the development of next-generation Japanese photography. It was certainly also thanks to the samizdat magazine Provoke, which was published by Moriyama and Takanashi between 1968 and 1970. 

Similarly to these photographers, Hitomi Satō breaks the basic photography rules, for instance, by not adhering to traditional composition, by mirroring space and creating original depictions of a non-existing reality, and by deliberately shifting how colours are rendered and using excessive saturation. The chaos in the exhibited photographs is only implied. An intimate shot of an unmade bed, a view of the night sky from a window, and vivid street situations make up “Hitomi Satō’s Mosaic of Feelin

Daniel Šperl, exhibition curator

Leica Gallery Café