Zubair Qureshi
The Japan Foundation and the Embassy of Japan in Pakistan in collaboration with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) showcased on Wednesday an impressive exhibition of “Photographic Images and Matter: Japanese Prints of the 1970s” at the premises of the National Art Gallery. Ambassador of Japan Wada Mitsuhiro who inaugurated the exhibition said that the event provided a good opportunity to the viewers to take a glimpse of the Japanese prints of the 1970s, an era in which new trend emerged in contemporary Japanese art due to a focus on photographic images and matter.
He hoped that the viewer would gain a deeper understanding of contemporary art trends of the 1970s which were triggered by the print medium.
“I am glad to come back here again this year since the Japan Foundation has been organizing professional travelling exhibition all over the world every year with their sophisticated collection, it is the Embassy’s important mission to bring those exhibitions to Pakistan as frequently as possible, idealistically annually, to promote the understanding of Japanese culture for Pakistani people,” said the Japanese envoy.
Through this exhibition, I hope you will not only enjoy just Japanese contemporary arts in the 1970s but also feel the rapidly changing society of Japan at that time, he added. The Japan Foundation’s newly organized travelling exhibition “Photographic Images and Matter: Japanese Prints of the 1970s” which is curated by the curator Kyoji Takizawa focuses on print expressions from the 1970s as seen in the work of 14 artists who helped develop a print movement in the world of Japanese contemporary art.
Divided into two sections, the exhibition showcases “The Age of Photographic Images,” which focuses on the use of photographic images in the print medium, and “Images of Autonomous Matter,” which focuses on works that were shaped by the intentions of matter.
