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Photo Respiration: Tokihiro Sato Photographs At first glance this exhibit of former sculptor Tokihiro Sato’s photography appears to be a relatively generic display of contemporary black and white photography. Of course the images where large and the transparencies were cleanly displayed with backlighting. The show is nicely spaced but would have benefited from better or lower lighting levels. I never read the accompanying documentation before viewing artwork, and I hadn’t seen Sato’s work before. I viewed the exhibit with the mindset that at least I would see images from places I have never visited and be exposed to an artist whose work I hadn’t seen. Sato’s photographs suffer from an ailment that seems to permeate contemporary art. The work struggles unsuccessfully to find a balance between subject and process. The process ends up being more interesting than the resulting artwork. I wouldn’t normally endorse the idea that the viewer needs to be familiar with the artist’s process in order to understand the artwork but in the case of these photographs it is essential. Without that knowledge these photographs seem generic and derivative. Sato’s black & white compositions, with their glowing spots and lines of light, could have been created with any number of digital imaging software. Knowing the meticulous planning and rigorous process that Sato engages in helps the work tremendously. Sato’s photographs are created utilizing an aspect of photography that existed at the time of its invention. Extremely long exposure time means that objects that are moving during the length of the exposure, and move out of the frame, do not appear in the photograph. Or, if the object remains within the picture frame, appear as blurred forms. This process causes the repetitiveness of waves crashing against the rocks to appear as mist. It also turns a crowded, busy urban intersection into a strangely abandoned landscape. Through this technique, Sato’s work contains a strong link between contemporary photography and its past. While this process makes the work more dynamic, the real benefit comes from the questions it raises. These photographs are no longer a record of just a moment in time. Sato has actually recorded the passage of time in a single frame. Is this a photograph of a subject or a record of a performance? His three-dimensional activity is recorded in 2 dimensions. Does what’s missing become more interesting or important than that what is there? Is Sato a photographer, sculptor, or performer? The presence of the artist in an artwork has always intrigued me, especially in contemporary art. Where is the artist standing? What is the intent? In non-performative work this is obviously more difficult to answer. It gets even harder as the trend for contemporary artists to further remove themselves from the work continues. But Sato has turned the notion of the artist’s presence on its head. He has been able to physically record his presence without recording his physical self. There are other works that are able to do this but, in a strange way, Sato is able to emphasize both his absence and his presence at the same time. In the end, though, the photographs still feel repetitive and derivative. They either contain spots of light for daytime exposures or luminous lines for night shots. And, while I wasn’t greatly impressed by this group of photographs, I still came away from exhibit with a lot to think about.
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