the amana collection
Exhibit 01: Takashi Arai, Taisuke Koyama, Naoya Hatakeyama, Takashi Homma

the amana collection represents the excellence of contemporary Japanese photography. Begun in 2011, the collection is comprised of approximately seven hundred exhibition prints thus far, representing a broad cross-section of approaches and methodologies.

Particularly in a post-digital age, photography in its ubiquity has become a primary interface between ourselves and the world. As each photographer develops his own means of expression, photography as a craft continues to evolve and expand in possibility. The many forms that photography assumes mirrors our increasingly nuanced relationship with self, other and even reality itself.

the amana collection brings together the work of those photographers who question our established ways of thinking and seeing in order to clear the way for the new. the amana collection is committed to supporting the efforts of Japanese photographers by raising the awareness and understanding of their photography.

In this inaugural exhibit, the works of four different photographers represent four different means of production. Takashi Homma’s use of camera obscura technique to photograph a city’s skyline and Takashi Arai’s use of daguerreotypes harken to photography’s earliest days. Taisuke Koyama’s use of a macro lens to present a new portrait of Tokyo was during the first wave of photography to be created in a wholly digital environment. Meanwhile, Naoya Hatakeyama’s images of the city were shot along the Yamate-dori, tracing the path of construction of an underground expressway. The ever-evolving city is reshaped by the lines drawn by human hands, telling an alternate history of the city.

In a way, this assembly of prints by these photographers represents different generations of photography’s history, questioning what we can see by making us aware how we see.