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Kamagasaki – Shinsekai, Life in the Shadow of the Economic Miracle
Events
Written by KALONSNET Editor   
Published: November 22 2010

Courtesy of Zen Foto Gallery

Photo exhibition by Shunji Dodo and Seiryu Inoue held in Zen Foto Gallery.

We present works by two Japanese photographers, Shunji Dodo and Seiryu Inoue. Known variously as Shinseikai or Kamagasaki, among other names, it is a notorious district of southern Osaka near Tennoji. This is a rough area. Day labourers hang around hoping for work on one of the building sites of Osaka. If they don`t catch a ride on the back of a truck for a hard day`s work they will sit drinking by the side of the road. If they were lucky to get a job they will return and spend their money drinking and whoring. The area is pure underworld Japan. Porn movie theaters and roadside bars, prostitutes and pimps, gangsters and gamblers. The other face of Japan`s romanticized High Growth Era.

Shunji Dodo was born and raised in Osaka. He has been teacher and then principal of the Osaka Visual Arts College since the early 1970s. He received the Ina Nobuo Award in 1999. Dodo`s book “Shinsekai: Past and Present” was published in 1986.

Seiryu Inoue was born in 1931 in Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku and moved to Osaka as a young man, working in the photographic studio of Takeji Iwamiya from 1951. For his photographic work in the district in the 1950s “The Hundred Faces of Kamagasaki” he received in 1961 the Newcomer`s Award from the Japan Photography Critics` Association.

In 1959 a young Daido Moriyama also joined Iwamiya`s studio. The older Inoue clearly had a great influence on Moriyama and they remained close friends until Inoue`s untimely death in 1988. The work of Osaka-based photographers may not have received the attention given to those in Tokyo, but the works from Osaka on display in this exhibition at Zen Foto stand comparison with any taken in post-war Japan.

Shashin Bonenkai, 24-30 December 2010
Shashin Bonenkai is a special event at Zen Foto to close 2010. We are open to all to bring ONE photograph for display in Zen Foto from 24th December until 30th December. Works can be any size that fits the available space, framed or not, of any subject. Surprise us! We will run an optional auction for work on display. We only accept work on 24th and 25th during the gallery open hours, and on 25th afternoon from 16:00pm we will have an opening party. Zen Foto will be open 24th, 25th, 26th, 29th, 30th December.

* The text provided by Zen Foto Gallery


Opened dates: November 26 - December 19, 2010
Opening reception: December 25, 2010, 16:00 -

Last Updated on November 26 2010
 

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