Photography is a process of diluting one's ideal image and increasing external contingency. Through editing and processing, we re-approach our ideal image and increase the serendipity again through development. In this chain of processes, I think that the image will be material and contingent, and show intensity.
——Hiroshi Yokota
Daisuke Yokota is one of the most high-profile artists in Japan and abroad today. His work has been collected in places such as the Foam Museum in Amsterdam, and has been highly praised at overseas exhibitions and art fairs. In 2019, he received the Kimura Ihei Photography Award, which is known as the "Akutagawa Prize for Photography".
Untitled, 2013
Untitled, 2013
What makes his work unique is that it is made in a unique way that is different from ordinary photographic works. The most well-known of these are a series of abstract works that look like paintings painted in a variety of colors. Of course, it's not by painting directly on the photographs, nor by capturing these spectacles of color with the camera. The secret lies in the way he uses silver salt film as a material.
Untitled from the series Lichen, 2012
Untitled from the series site/cloud, 2013
Such a color pattern can be created by randomly superimposing black-and-white and color films and then developing them with a high-temperature liquid (thermal development). With thermal development, the film may overreact and the gelatin on the surface will dissolve, resulting in changes in color and shape, creating such an effect.
In Daisuke Yokota's creative activities, the relationship between memory and reality, image and reality has always been the theme. At the same time, he is concerned with the 'materiality of photographs'. Among them, the "Color Photographs" series of works directly induces optical and chemical changes on the film, capturing the wrinkled or overlapping state of various color films.
These works allow people to feel the unprecedented tactile sensation through the unique undulations and complex color changes of the film.
"Actually, I found it very interesting to shape the shape from a completely flat and thick-free image, gradually adding height. It's not about reproducibility, and there's no right answer. ”
——Hiroshi Yokota
《Untitled from the series Vertigo, 2013》
Other works
Daisuke Yokota creates his works by deconstructing previously recorded scenes (photographs) and fixing the updated image of reality through this process. These superimposed images become rough and unstable, stimulating the viewer's perception.
In order to achieve this visual effect, Yokota makes full use of various photographic techniques, such as high-temperature film development, Photoshop retouching, and reproduction, from which the morphology of noise such as emulsion dissolution and dust adhering to the surface of the film is extracted, and images are generated by intervening in serendipity to create images.
Eventually, in the process, he approached the essence of photography as a medium and made it a way of realizing his work.
About Daisuke Yokota
Daisuke Yokota (よこた・だいすけ) was born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan in 1983. Graduated from Japan College of Photographic Arts.
In 2010, he won the "2nd Photography 1_WALL Exhibition" award. In 2013, he participated in the "LUMIX MEETS JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHERS 9" exhibition held by the IMA project, which was specially sponsored by Panasonic Co., Ltd. and LUMIX. In the same year, he became the first winner of "The Outset I Unseen Exhibition Fund" at the Unseen Photography Exhibition in Amsterdam, and held a solo exhibition at the Foam Museum of Photography the following year in 2014.
2015年，在伦敦摄影展上获得了John Kobal Residency Award，2016年获得了Paul Huf Award。 他出版的摄影集连续两年被提名为Aperture Foundation PhotoBookAwards。
His main photo collections include "VERTIGO" and "Weoping Roots". Together with photographers Koji Kitagawa and Naokan Udagawa, he formed "Spew" and was engaged in a wide range of activities, including the production of ZINE and music performances.
Daisuke Yokota Solo Exhibition “Matter / “ September 2016, G/P gallery, Tokyo
Site/Cloud at Foam Museum
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