NikkeiTHE Financial Times and the Peter Fetterman Gallery present an exhibition of the photographer Michael Kenna. Titled ‘Japan / A Love story’, the exhibition presents 100 hand-made prints, highlights of works produced in Japan over nearly four decades. The exhibition will travel from Tokyo, Los Angeles and London from April to October.
Michael Kenna has been photographing landscapes around the world for over fifty years. The extensive explorations and imagery of Japan, which he first visited in 1987, constitute perhaps his most notable and best-known works.
“On my first visit to Japan, I was blown away by the aesthetics, the spiritual and religious aspects, the curiosity of the people, their kindness and generosity,” says Kenna. “Later I went to northern Hokkaido in the middle of winter and it seemed to me to be a stark sumi-e ink painting, a white canvas with Kanji characters. I’ve been in love with this place ever since.”
This exceptional collection of one hundred original gelatin silver prints, handmade by Kenna, was curated by Peter Fetterman who writes:
“It was one of the most beautiful collaborations of my career. My special thanks of course go to Michael Kenna for creating such beauty, to our dear friends and sponsors, Naotoshi Okada, Chairman and CEO of the Nikkei Group, John Ridding, CEO of the Financial Times – and to their fantastic teams – for generously contributed to making this happen. the project is being realized.”
Opening first in Tokyo in April, after Los Angeles, the exhibition will travel to London at Asia House in September.
About Michael Kenna
Michael Kenna’s mysterious photographs, often taken at dawn or during the dark hours of the night, focus primarily on the interaction between the natural landscape and man-made structures. Kenna is both a day and night photographer, fascinated by the times of day when the light is most flexible. With prolonged exposures, lasting all night, his photographs often record details that the human eye is not capable of perceiving.
Kenna is particularly known for the intimate scale of his photographs and his personal, meticulous printing style. He works with the traditional film photographic medium, not digital. His superbly hand-crafted black and white prints, which he makes in his own darkroom, reflect a sense of refinement, respect for history and total originality.
Over the course of Kenna’s fifty-year career, his photographs have been featured in nearly a thousand solo exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, and are included in more than a hundred permanent institutional collections, notably: The National Library, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo; The National Gallery, Washington, DC; The Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Born in Widnes, Lancashire, England in 1953, Kenna currently lives with his family in Seattle, Washington, USA, and continues to photograph and exhibit internationally.
Michael Kenna: Japan / A Love Story
from May 11 to July 20, 2024
Peter Fetterman Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave, Gallery A1
Santa Monica, CA 90404-4031
https://www.peterfetterman.com/japanalovestory/
The exhibition is complemented by the publication of a book of the same name by Nazraeli Pressdesigned by the Japanese Hideyuki Taguchi.
The book features 100 of Michael Kenna’s most iconic photographs of the Japanese landscape, many of which are published here for the first time.
Michael Kenna
Japan | A Love Story (Peter Fetterman Gallery Edition)
Publisher: Nazraeli, 2024
Hardcover with case
size: 13 x 1 x 10″
136 pages
$85.00
Michael Kenna will be at the gallery signing books on opening day, Saturday, May 11, from 2 to 4 p.m.
