Gelatin silver print, Video (10min 5 sec. silent, black-and-white film)

A photographic installation by Hiroko Komatsu, was presented at “I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now“, an exhibition at Rencontres d’Arles 2024 in France.

[A set of work]
Fifty of the more than 800, 8x10inch prints used in the installation will be selected and newly printed as a unique edition and sold as a set.

Gelatin silver print
Paper size:  20.3×25.4cm
Image size: 16×24cm
Edition: Unique

[Single print]
Single images from the set of 50 will also be available as 20x24inch prints.

Gelatin silver print
Paper size: 50.8×61cm
Image size: 38.5×58cm
Edition: Unique

“Text and photographs are very similar. A single photograph is not enough to make sense. A single word doesn’t make sense by itself, either. And when you put together multiple photographs or words, a meaning emerges.”

Komatsu Hiroko, initially an experimental-noise musician, began working with photography in the mid-2000s after participating in a workshop led by photographer Kanemura Osamu. Komatsu is simultaneously a minimalist and a maximalist. Her photographs of industrial sites—sites of construction and sites of destruction—are all shot with a 35mm Leica and seem austere and straightforward. The impact and effect of her work is amplified through her installations, which feature hundreds, if not thousands, of images. Over the past decade, Komatsu has gained recognition for her complex, immersive installations—rooms filled with gelatin-silver prints of various sizes, some of which visitors can even walk on, and the scent of developing chemicals—that present an immersive, visceral experience of her creative process. Komatsu is also known for her handmade photobooks presented in imaginative forms, such as a glass bottle or a card catalog. These works, which she calls “livres objets,” are visually captivating and politically engaged, conveying her concerns around environmental issues. Her multisensory and experimental approach to shooting, printing, and installing photographs showcases her mastery of the medium and its materiality.
(Exhibition press release from Aperture)

Installation views

LES RENCONTRES D’ARLES
“I’m So Happy You are Here:
Japanese Woman Photographers from the 1950s to Now”

Dates: July 1 – September 29, 2024
Venue: Palais de l’Archevêché (Arles, France)