Présage / Connotations

Hideyuki Ishibashi is based in Lille, in northern France, and makes works by appropriating and collaging found photographs. He had his solo exhibition, “Présage” at BT Gallery in Tokyo in 2013 and IMA Photobooks published Présage, a book of the same works in 2015.

Very active overseas, Ishibashi has shown “Présage” at Gallery Vol de Nuits in Marseille, also in 2015 and also exhibited his new series “Connotations” at UNSEEN in Amsterdam to great acclaim.

In “Présage”, Ishibashi makes each piece by meticulously collaging together multiple fragments of old photographs and postcards purchased at flea markets. He reconstructs the photographic fragments, divorced from their original contexts, to create a world that is suspended between fantasy and reality.

The finished pieces, in fact, are so carefully pieced together that at first glance it’s unapparent that they are composed of multiple images. At the same time, Ishibashi intentionally leaves dust and other matter that enter the pieces during their production to add depth to the works.

Ishibashi pushes the methods of appropriation and reconstruction used in “Présage” even further in his new series “Connotations”. The fictional portraits constituting the series are woven together from words that were evoked by highly personal poems written by his friend, a female American poet, based on her romantic relationships. Using images from the internet, Ishibashi collaged embodied images of fictional men.

Inspired by the use of keywords to categorize photographs on photo-sharing applications, Ishibashi used hashtags to find infinite quantities of images on the internet. By adding images resembling typical fashion advertising imagery to them, he transforms the words, which were products of personal experience, into a more socially oriented imaged. In this process, he not only combines literature and photography, but also examines the relation between photography and collective memory in contemporary society.

Contemporary society is flooded with an infinite number of images which are constantly and instantaneously consumed. By intentionally employing complex processes to produce single images in this social context, Ishibashi creates multilayered images that make their viewers re-examine what it means to “look.” In this exhibition, the original collages, which are the sources of the two series, will also be displayed to show the artist’s working process.

Specifically because we live in a time inundated with images, I simply want, by exhibiting these works produced in the complicated processes described above, to provide viewers with the time to reconsider the ambiguity inherent in the act of looking.

– Hideyuki Ishibashi