The other day, when I visited Fujifilm Square, I thought that during this seemingly endless, harsh summer, Tokyo Midtown Roppongi has become the perfect “summer retreat” for Tokyo residents.
It seemed that many people were not just stopping by to shop or eat, but were enjoying “staying” in the air-conditioned, open, spacious area. I was one of them. Rather than rushing out after finishing the photo exhibition, I decided to stay a bit longer and found this pamphlet.
A map and explanations of the locations of contemporary artworks displayed throughout Midtown as public art. If you take a stroll around the area to explore the mall and photograph these works, you are sure to have an enjoyable “stay.”
After some trial and error, I decided that black-and-white photos looked better, so I used the “L Monochrome” photo style on my LUMIX GF10, which I had brought with me that day.
Here are a few examples.
Return of Will, Kan Yasuda
Wonderful Dream, Kan Yasuda
The top two are near the entrance to Midtown Roppongi, so many people may recognize them.
NE, Silver, Gold to Platinum, Hisasi Momose
From the Land of Memories, Takenobu Igarashi
Away from Painting [Rai], Kazuhiro Ishiyama
Fragment No. 5, Florian Clark
The reason why “Fragment N0.5” is the last one with an outdoor location is, as you might have guessed, because I ventured out into the garden but was deterred by the heat and gave up on moving forward, retreating back indoors.
Among the works posted, the one that resonated with me the most was the photographic work “Rai.”I interpreted the information from the interview with the artist, Ishiyama, in my own way and came up with the following “highlights” to look for when viewing the work.
This work is a high-definition photograph composed of hundreds of digital photos of Himalayan rock peaks. In Japan, rocks are often used in garden design to represent mountains, but when we view such enormous rock peaks in high definition, in a way that differs from what we see with the naked eye, what do we see there?
My snapshots do not fully convey the originality of the work, but I highly recommend visiting the exhibition to see the actual piece. By the way, I imagined a surreal, otherworldly landscape of dried mountains and water surrounding the rock peaks.
