Photo City: William Klein and Photographers Who Live in the 22nd Century
I visited “Photo City: William Klein and Photographers Who Live in the 22nd Century,” held at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT.
In addition to works by William Klein, this special exhibition brings together works by photographers from Japan and across Asia.
William Klein
William Klein, one of the defining photographers of the 20th century, is an artist who exerted a decisive influence on contemporary visual culture through works that captured cities around the world and through expression that transcended the genres of photography, film, design, and fashion.
The greatest highlight of the exhibition is a space in which the video artist “TAKCOM” projected the photographs of cities taken by William Klein.
The way a variety of photographs unfolded one after another across many monitors with a sense of momentum left an impression of a world that, amid all its diversity, felt unified and interconnected. I think this alone makes the exhibition worth seeing.
Works by Participating Artists
Meanwhile, the greater part of the exhibition is carried by young artists from Japan and the rest of Asia.
Photographs expressed within the framework of “the city” were developed through each artist’s own personal vision.
Inside the venue there were many young people wandering about with expensive-looking SLR cameras, and it offered scenes suggesting that photographic culture is being reliably handed down to the next generation.
