18.06.2010 at 7 p.m

 

 

Ken Matsubara is associated with Ma 2 Gallery in Tokio. He presented his exhibition not only in Japan but also in Paris (1987), New York (1988), Woodstock. He creates “staged photography” and ephemeral, intangible installations. His Works were presented in Poland just once – in Photography Biennale in Poznan in 2009.

During his lecture the artist will present how his art has developed since the 70’s till today against the background of contemporary art scene in Japan. Matsubara will also try to describe the specific motifs and aesthetics which is resulting from Japanese aesthetical tradition connected with the influences of European culture (Symbolism, Surrealism) – including Polish – and Gaston Bachelard’s psychoanalysis (The Poetics of Reverie).

 

 

Ken Matsubara was born in 1949 in Tokyo. In 1973 he graduated from Musashino Art University in Tokyo. In the years 1983-87 he lived in New York. He is active in the area of photography and installation. In the 1980’s he created an original concept of “staged photography” (coloured photography) This emphasised the immateriality, elusiveness and ambiguity of presented forms (Polaroid Spectra, 1987). He emphasised references to Surrealism and object with minimal-art elements. During the exhibition Recent Works (1993, Art Site) he enhanced the impact of constructed objects having traditionally geometric or symbolic forms (a ladder or stairs) by presenting them in contrast with expressively painted backgrounds. He stressed the illusion of perspective composition and gold colour of “heavenly” objects, which was presented in his earlier exhibition Vertical and Horizontal (PS Gallery, Tokyo, 1990). In 2005, Ma 2 Gallery in Tokyo held an exhibition Sleepwalker, inspired by a psychoanalytic interpretation of Gaston Bachelard (Poetics of a Dream). The exhibition raised the issues of children’s dreams and ever present memories from the Second World War (Strange Cloud). It was an exhibition on the verge of the world and surrealistic vision, with its oriental sensations in beautifully arranged end exceptionally suggestive visions. The works are present in the collections of such institutions as: International Polaroid Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Goldman Sachs Corporation, New York

 

Lecture presented within the framework of exhibition “THE ARCHETYPE OF PHOTOGRAPHY. Joachim Froese, Ken Matsubara, Grzegorz Przyborek”