Yasuhiro Ogawa 小川康博
The Dreaming
Exhibition Dates: 9 April – 2 May 2021
Preview: Thursday 8 April, 2021, 4-8pm
展覽日期: 2021年4月9日－5月2日
開幕日期: 星期四 4月8日, 下午4－8時
Venue: Blue Lotus Gallery, G/F 28 Pound Lane, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
Opening hours: Wed–Sun, 11am–6pm , closed on public holidays
Over Easter the gallery will open on Fri-Sun, 2-4 April 2-6pm, closed on Monday 5 April
地點: Blue Lotus Gallery, 香港上環磅巷28號地下
開放時間: 星期三至日, 上午11時－下午6時 (公眾假期休息）
復活節假期開放時間：4月2日至4日 星期五至日，上午2時－下午6時，4月5日 星期一休息
Related Event:
Saturday 24 April 11am: zoom talk with Yasuhiro Ogawa (meet at the gallery or log in online)
相關活動:
小川康博 Zoom網上分享會: 星期六 2021年4月24日, 上午11時 (於畫廊或自行網上登入收看）
Related Workshop:
Introduction to film photography with Mike Epstein
This course gives a hands on practical introduction to film photography.
At the beginning of the course you will be given a disposable camera and a task to come back the next week with a finished roll. In consecutive course days you will learn to develop your own negatives and make your first print in a proper dark room.
Course 1 (on Wednesdays, 7-9pm) 28/4, 5/5, 12/5, 19/5, limited to 4 people max.
Course 2 (on Fridays, 7-9pm) 30/4, 7/5, 14/5, 21/5, limited to 4 people max.
PRESS RELEASE
I can’t start this press release boasting about Yashuhiro Ogawa’s fame and claim in the art ecosystem, as in fact, you probably never heard of him before. With just over 1,000 followers, he is not even a star on Instagram.
Maybe if he was just starting out it might explain why, but Ogawa crossed the milestone of 50-years-old and has dedicated his entire life so far to photography.
In today’s day and age we tend to be attracted to things that move fast. The art world is not save from this approach. Some artists are catapulted to fame and stardom barely leaving school. Photographers are expected to be quick in learning, flash and trendy at a young age, and preferably have a gigantic following on social media. ‘Je pense donc je suis’, has turned into ‘I have likes, therefore I matter’.
But Ogawa took his time to be timeless.
Real talent doesn’t need digital likes. You just know when you look at something very special.
Ogawa sent us his most recent publication ‘The dreaming’ a few months ago. At Blue Lotus Gallery we were instantly attracted to the work. We ordered ‘The dreaming’ and all Ogawa’s previous book publications for our bookshop. His books flew off our shelves, often picked up by seasoned and connoisseur photo book collectors that were impressed by the quality of his work.
This was not unique to our gallery. In the UK, ‘The dreaming’ topped the chart number 1 of best selling photo books in 2020 at the very well respected photo book store which lists over 600 books. People are discovering this so far hidden gem at last. And a gem he is.
So what is it about Ogawa’s work?
When I look at this work, I think of the words of the iconic Hong Kong photographer Fan Ho comes to mind: ‘The magic of the black and white lies in the distance to reality, it is in that space that poetry exists.’ This is what Ogawa understands very well. After experimenting with both digital and film cameras he opted to work on black and white film. The grainy, often blurry pictures hide more than they reveal.
“My work is not about documenting the world,” Ogawa said, “it is about looking for, and capturing emotions. I hope the viewer can feel some emotions too when watching my work.” There is something universal about the human emotional life. We all understand the excitement of wanderlust, the feelings of longing and sadness and the warmth of being united with a loved one after a long wait on a cold trainst station platform.
A good friend of mine who is a photography book collector, said: ‘When I look at his work, it seems very abstract and undefined, and I can’t always understand. Yet, I don’t want to understand. I just want to feel what I feel and enjoy this feeling. Very little art touches me on an emotional level as Ogawa’s work does’.
The project we are featuring at Blue Lotus Gallery is Ogawa first solo exhibition in Hong Kong and it is based on his latest book ‘The dreaming’, published in February 2020 in a small print run of 500 copies. The prints shown in the exhibition are all developed by the artist himself in the dark room.
For Ogawa ‘The Dreaming’ entails memories of his backpack travelling in his younger days. About thirty years ago, he took the ferry from Kobe to Shanghai and embarked on a long journey through Asia which took him to China (including Tibet), Myanmar, India, Cambodia and other countries. Revisiting these negatives was for the artists as reliving an old dream.
But for many of us, these images which echo the feeling of care free travel: the sensation of freedom, longing and waiting… simply feeling alive… seems something we, for now, can only just but dream about.
press release prepared by Sarah Greene
我無法以吹噓小川康博在攝影界的名氣和聲譽為這篇新聞稿作始，因為你可能連他的名字也未曾聽聞過。目前只擁有1000多名Instagram追蹤者的他，在社交媒體上的知名度絕對稱不上是高。假若他是一名初出茅廬的攝影師，這狀況可能比較合乎情理，但他其實已踏入知命之年，並將一生都奉獻於攝影上。
當今時代，我們很容易著迷於迅速而成的事物，但這種態度並不適用於藝術界。有些藝術家畢業前已受名氣誘引，亦有不少人認為攝影師必須連忙學習，從小追逐潮流，並在社交媒體上獲得大量關注。「我思故我在」變成了「我被讚好故我在」。
但小川康博卻不受時間所催促。
不需要數碼化的「讚好」所認同，真正的才華其實只需看一眼便心裏有數。數個月前，小川將他的《The Dreaming》攝影集贈送給Blue Lotus Gallery，我們一下子就迷上了。隨後我們為書店購入了《The Dreaming》以及小川其餘出版的攝影集。它們通通被迅速一購而空，並得到多位鑑賞家和收藏家的青睞。這購買熱潮不僅出現於我們畫廊，於2020年，《The Dreaming》於600多本攝影書籍當中，脫穎而出登上了英國知名Photobookstore的暢銷書榜第一位。終於，大家發掘到這一顆滄海遺珠。
小川的作品為何如此特別？
當我看到他的作品時，聯想起香港攝影大師何藩說過的一句話：「黑白的魔力在於跟現實人生的一種距離。詩意正正存在於這片空間裏。」小川了解並掌握到這一點。嘗試過以數碼和菲林相機創作後，小川最終選擇了黑白菲林。在滿佈顆粒和模糊的景象中，照片所暗藏的意境比表面展示的更為多。
小川說：「我的作品並不是要記錄世界，而是要追索和捕捉情感。我希望觀眾看過我的作品後能感受至深。」人類的感情有許多共同之處，我們同樣能明白旅遊的興奮、渴望與落寞、那種在寒風凜冽的月台上久等友人後相會的溫暖。
一名收藏攝影書的好友跟我說：「當我看到小川的作品時，它們看起來既抽象又不明確，我總是不太明白，但亦不刻意去明白，我只想感受並享受其中。很少作品能如此觸動到我。」
本展覽為小川首次在香港舉辦的個人展，作品源自他最新出版的攝影集《The Dreaming》。該書於2020年2月出版，印刷成500冊。所有展出的作品均為藝術家在暗房親手製作的原照。《The Dreaming》是關於他年輕時背包旅行的回憶。大概三十年前，他在神戶踏上前往上海的渡輪，展開他在亞洲的長征，他到訪過中國（包括西藏）、緬甸、印度及柬埔寨。對小川而言，重新審視自己的底片，感覺就彷似重溫一場舊夢。
但對許多人而言，這些照片喚起了無憂無慮地漫遊的感覺：自由、渴望、等待、簡活，但似乎這些感覺，我們目前都只能憑空想像。
新聞稿由Sarah Greene編寫
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For media and sale inquiries please contact Sarah at sarah@bluelotus-gallery.com
如有任何查詢或預約訪問請(以英語)聯繫: Sarah：sarah@bluelotus-gallery.com
