Japan Museum SieboldHuis will present a new photo exhibition from Friday, June 16, this time landscape photographer Shibata Toshio’s work will be shown at the museum. This renowned landscape photographer captures images of large-scale highways and civil engineering constructions in uninhabited regions in striking photographic works. Experience the beauty of the constructed landscape and the tension between human intervention and the strength of nature as seen by Shibata Toshio.
Upon completing his studies at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts Shibata Toshio (1949) left for Europe. After a short stay in the Netherlands and Belgium, he returned to Japan. There he discovered the visual beauty and intensity of human intervention in Japan’s changed landscape. Civil engineering structures such as dams, lakes and bridges play a central role in his work. His perspective takes the viewer beyond the functionality of these structures and shows them the esthetics of the infrastructure. His compositions illustrate how nature (weather, corrosion, erosion, water currents and landslides) reclaims damage done by human intervention. Shibata’s photos, taken with a large-format camera exude an atmosphere of fantasy void of references to time, place and scale. His works have been praised for their timeless, abstract and picturesque qualities.
Also featured in this exhibition is a series of bridges in the Benelux as seen from various different perspectives. Shibata is the recipient of several prestigious awards such as the Japanese ‘Kimura Ihei Award’. His works can be found in Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Sprengel Museum in Hannover, the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Visit Japan Museum SieboldHuis and experience the beauty of the constructed landscape.
Running parallel to this exhibition is a private collection: ‘Tohoku Girls. Kokeshi Dolls from Japan’. Over three hundred handcrafted wooden dolls will be on display in Japan Museum SieboldHuis. The photo exhibition can be visited till Sunday September 3rd, 2017. The museum can be found at Rapenburg 19 in Leiden and is opened from Tuesday till Sunday from 10.00 till 17.00. Ticket prices can be found at the website of the museum.
Source: Japan Museum SieboldHuis
