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<\/a>Japanese National Flag, 1959 \u2013 1965, From the series The Map \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a>Words Burning Up, 1960 \u2013 1965, From the series Endless Map \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>Ohta River, Atomic Bomb Dome, 1959 \u2013 1965, From the series Endless Map \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series The Last Cosmology \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n The heart of the tour is based on The Map, a cult book published in 1965 and now considered one of the pinnacles of Japanese photobooks. In it, Kawada confronts the ruins of Hiroshima, the signs of the American occupation, and the invisible scars of Japan\u2019s defeat. Contrary to the photojournalism of the time, he constructs an elliptical narrative, where the image never shows head-on, but suggests. The photograph becomes a fragment, a stain, a flickering light. \u201cPhotography is a multidimensional thing for him. He never used titles like \u2018Hiroshima,\u2019 but something abstract, like \u2018The Map\u2019, to evoke deeper layers of meaning,\u201d says Sayaka Takahashi. Kikuji Kawada, for his part, explains: \u201cI don\u2019t start with a title or a theme in mind. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, something, not logically, but intuitively, appears out of nowhere. That\u2019s how it works.\u201d And capturing these unexpected and sudden moments requires daily shooting and careful attention to daylight. I believe this is the only way to proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n The series, recently revisited by the artist under the title \u201cEndless Map,\u201d gives its name to the exhibition. Faced with his rescanned negatives, Kawada perceived a change in light, a perceptual mutation. \u201cThe darkroom became a lightroom,\u201d he says. New images were born, imbued with abstraction, silence, and matter. In Arles, these photographs are exhibited flat, in a large square structure, somewhere between the tradition of tokonoma and open architecture.<\/p>\n A photographer and publisher, Kawada has always considered the book as a creative space in its own right. Before devoting himself to images, he worked at Iwanami Shoten, an iconic Japanese publishing house. This culture of form, rhythm, text, and image permeates all of his work. \u201cHis selection of words is like a photographic framing,\u201d observes Sayaka Takahashi. \u201cHe knows how to combine image and text in a profound, poetic, and precise way.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series The Map \/ Visions of the Invisible \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series Vortex \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>Helio-spot and a Helicopter, Tokyo, 1990, From the series The Last Cosmology \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n Other series complete the exhibition in Arles, such as \u201cThe Last Cosmology,\u201d a vast meditation on the sky as a place of foreboding. Dense clouds, eclipses, and disturbing halos evoke the tremors of a world in flux. Sayaka Takahashi recounts: \u201cIn 2001, he photographed a strange sunset. A few hours later, the World Trade Center towers collapsed. He wasn\u2019t expecting it, but he perceived something unusual in the sky.\u201d Between observation and intuition, his photography captures the prelude to disaster, what the visible struggles to express.<\/p>\n Alongside, \u201cLos Caprichos,\u201d inspired by Goya, Kawada continues his critique of the modern world. Begun in the 1970s, the series explores the mental architectures of a Japan in full economic growth. Grids, cages, visual prisons compose a geometry of confinement. \u201cIf I had to rename it today, it would be \u2018Endless Map, Unfinished, Continue,’\u201d says the photographer. An expanding body of work, traversed by fear and chaos. Finally, \u201cVortex\u201d marks a dive into contemporary abstraction. Derived from his daily publications on Instagram, this work translates the vertigo of digital technology, the loss of bearings, the whirlwind of forms. \u201cHe is present on Instagram every day, but not like young people. His publications are poetic, published daily, deeply rooted in the history of photography,\u201d says Sayaka Takahashi.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series Los Caprichos \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series Vortex \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series Los Caprichos \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>From the series Vortex \u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI<\/p>\n Kawada\u2019s obsessive anxiety about an apocalyptic future, fueled by a deep compassion for humanity, is rooted in his childhood: \u201cI was born at the beginning of the Showa era. I experienced a great war during my childhood, then a period of reconstruction and growth, and now I am slowly approaching the twilight of life. Through my photographs, cosmology is an illusion of the firmament, encompassing both the reality of an era and that of a changing heart.\u201d<\/p>\n Expressive and complex, Kawada\u2019s photographs offer a global vision of a world in motion\u2014a movement, above all, of emotions. Famous in Japan, alongside Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, and Nobuyoshi Araki, Kikuji Kawada is finally enjoying some recognition beyond his country\u2019s borders. It\u2019s worth noting that another of his series, \u201cLast Things,\u201d alludes to Paul Auster\u2019s book, In the Country of Last Things, highlighting Kawada\u2019s obsession with a dystopian future populated by lost souls. Kawada also evokes the world of artist Chris Marker and his famous photo novel La Jet\u00e9e.<\/p>\n While Kikuji Kaxada\u2019s empirical images do not directly convey his intellectual reflections on the future of our civilization, they lend themselves to interpretation. With outstretched arms, a woman floats in water that is partly clear and blue, partly murky and muddy; her eyes are closed, her features relaxed\u2014it is impossible to tell whether she is drawn toward the darkness or carried by happiness and freedom.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n