The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is committed to supporting creativity that engages the possibilities of photography and imaging. We thus organize a variety of exhibitions every year to showcase promising artists and provide a locus of new creative activity. The heart of that effort is our exhibitions that focus on contemporary Japanese photographers. For the ninth exhibition in this series, we focus on photographers who have discovered new possibilities in the snapshot.

The snapshot seizes the moment, grasping the depths of the human heart, the subtlest of feelings, even the ambience of the setting. The snapshot style, unique to photography, is unattainable in other media. The many artists who have noticed its fascination have, through the snapshot, given us powerful images, images that have burned themselves into our memories. Here we attempt to discover the elements that will define the future of the snapshot, based on the tradition of snapshot photography created by pioneering predecessors in the field. Here we may be able, freed from the quotidian world, to assemble vital elements--light, wind, motion, laughter, joy, delight--that awaken harmony and joie de vivre. At the same time, we may also discover elements that are quite antithetical.

The work by these six photographers include some instantly recognizable as snapshots and others that make one wonder if they could be snapshots at all or what on earth a snapshot is.This exhibition thus provides an opportunity to examine the evolving “new snapshot” through their work.

Artists Included
Ikeda Hirohiko, Obata Yuji, Shirai Satomi, Nakamura Haruko, Yamashiro Chikako, and Yuki Shigeo

Please also visit Radiant Moments: Snapshots Cast Their Spell, an exhibition from the museum’s collection that is being held concurrently in the 3F Exhibition Gallery. This exhibition presents a rich variety of snapshots, from classic examples to real-time photographs.

* The text provided by Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Opened dates: December 11, 2010 - February 6, 2011