What is not elegant... / Essay by Thomas Weski

As I have never been to Japan, my idea of that country has so far been largely conditioned by two completely different types of image. On the one hand, there are the vertical-format black ink paintings which had their hyday more than five hundred years ago, paintings which sought to express the harmony of man, nature and architecture; on the other, there are the images of densely populated, metropolitan scenarios produced with the aid of modern imaging media, that is, images largely characterized by the aesthetics of cinema, photography and video. Tese two completely different worlds of images and their respective subject matter also correspond to Japan's two geographical extremes, for Japan is an island state comprising several large and small islands and has mountainous regions in its interiors and flat valleys and plains in its coastal regions. the populated area are primarily those which are readily accessible, namely the conurbations on the narrow strip of land facing the pacific; the interior regions , which are extremely mountainous, even plain, are hardly populated. the accessible parts of these rural regions are characterized by steeply slooping hillsides, deep gorges, winding roads and small villages........

coming soon!

Thomas Weski