The TOP Collection exhibitions are held to introduce the works belonging to the collection of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. This year’s theme is ‘Reading Images’ and it considers the ways in which we interpret the visual images that comprise the ‘works’. In this exhibition we look at both individual photographs and series that have been carefully selected from our collection of over 35,000 works, focusing on the story that they relate. It will highlight the significance contained within the background of the works or the mutual relationship that joins them together; in addition, it will look at the inherent universality of the medium itself, inviting viewers to share the rich experience of ‘reading the image’.
The exhibition will focus on the image or narrative contained within the medium of photography itself and introduce the aspect of ‘time’ that this gives rise to. Photography is commonly recognized as being a method of cutting a moment out of the flow of time, but when we look at a photograph, the result from a momentary act, we sometimes find it affects our memories at a deep level, functioning as a device to summon images not only of the present, but also of a past that no longer exists or the future. In this context, photography can be said to be a medium that embodies time. This exhibition will look at the endeavors of photographers, from both Japan and abroad, to find an opportunity to move the time that lurks in the background or focusing on the chain of images they evoke, considering the photographs, their stories, and their accompanying temporal relationship from numerous angles, exploring a new aspect of the appeal of the museum’s collection.
TOP Collection
Reading Images: The Time of Photography
August 10, 2019 to November 4, 2019
Locations
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
Yebisu Garden Place, 1-13-3 Mita
Meguro-ku Tokyo 153-0062
Japan
Phone: +81-(0)3-3280-0099