EXHIBITION

29th April - 26th May 2025

Masafumi SanaiTentaishow Part 2

Photographer Masafumi Sanai made his debut with the photobook "Ikiteiru" in 1997, and won the Ihei Kimura Photography Award in 2003 for "MAP." Since 2008, he has published many photobooks under his own photobook label "Taisho." Part 2 of the exhibition series "Tentaisho" at Vacant will be held, which exhibits and sells photographic works selected from these publications. Continuing from the first part last year, this time the exhibition will feature works selected from "ARCA" (2008) and "Pairon" (2011), with a focus on his latest photobook "The photo, coming home". The beautiful photo prints, which are hand-printed one by one in Sanai's studio, will be put in frames order-made just for Tentaisho. Even during the past few decades, when the meaning and significance of photography has changed dramatically, Sanai has continued to take photographs. What kind of landscapes and words will emerge from his journey back to photography?


Bare Light
It’s difficult to describe the beauty of Sanai’s prints. Using a camera, a mechanical device, the light of a moment is burned onto film and developed. Through these repeated "reflections" of light, the print comes into being. On the other hand, the digitally processed images we see every day are burdened with the obligation to "convey" something in the process of being reduced to strings of 1s and 0s. Much like the light outside a window, which asks nothing of us, these analog prints impose no urgency to communicate. Just as we might suddenly recognize the wavelengths spilling onto the world as "the gentle light of afternoon," Sanai’s photographs may simply drift through existence until we happen to pause and take notice. And the landscapes that appear in the photographs are filled with the gentleness and fragility of nature, allowing us to encounter again and again the blue of the sky and the cold of the water.

Landscapes of Shared Time
This is the first exhibition I realized with Sanai, with whom I’ve had an ongoing dialogue about photography. Though the presentation is simple, just photographs arranged without distraction, it carries layers of intention and feeling. At its core is the desire to convey the beauty of each print, painstakingly crafted by hand in Sanai’s studio, as well as the desire to experience these prints for their physical presence, and not just as flat photographs mounted on backing and pinned down by mat boards. I recall the sensation of visiting Sanai's atelier, where he would carefully hand me a print, letting me look at it while holding it myself. Or the memory of my first darkroom print, which I taped to the wall in my apartment. The frames are custom-made from acrylic, designed so that the prints appear to float ever so slightly off the wall, casting a shadow behind. The three prints are attached to the frame base using acid-free double-sided tape, each one cut into a circle with a punch. This means the corners may get warped depending on the weather. Of course, a photo that sits neatly in a frame is beautiful, but the prints move every day as if they were alive. To me, that feels like the essence of Sanai’s photography. Every photograph in this exhibition exists as a small print, each nestled within its A4 acrylic frame. These are meant to be displayed in someone's living space, touched daily not with hands but with eyes. In these decades when photography has transformed into something nearly unrecognizable, where most images exist as transient data, I find myself returning to the importance of encountering photographs as what they fundamentally are: "art made of light." To invite these objects into our daily lives, and let them settle. To meet, each morning, the same captured light. The same photograph can look different to different people, and can also appear different depending on the person's mood. There's a fascinating power in how Sanai's "ambiguous" landscapes hold up a mirror to these subtle shifts within us. As I survey the prints on display, Sanai calls them "babies." "They'll grow from now on, won't they?" I nod in agreement, imagining these photos finding homes on someone's walls: watched over as they themselves keep watch, and sharing time together.


Masafumi Sanai, photographer. Born in Shizuoka in 1968. Received the 12th Canon New Century Photography Excellence Award in 1995, and made his debut in 1997 with the photo book "Ikiteiru" (Seigensha). In 2003, he won the Ihei Kimura Photography Award for his photo book "MAP" (Masafumi Sanai Photography Studio). In 2008, he launched his own photography label "Taisho" and has published numerous photo books to date. In addition to holding exhibitions and live performances both in Japan and overseas, he has also released the sound work "DORAYAKI" (2021) with Keiichi Sokabe as part of the unit "Gitaiya," which combines Sanai's poetry with Sokabe's music. He continues to be active in many areas, such as shooting the film "i ai" (directed and written by Mahito the People) in 2024. Major solo exhibitions: "Shizuoka Poetry" Shizuoka City Museum of Art (Shizuoka, 2023), "Raree" NADiff a/p/a/r/t (Tokyo, 2012), "Taisho: Masafumi Sanai's Photography" Kawasaki City Taro Okamoto Museum of Art (Kanagawa, 2009), etc. Major group exhibitions: "Wondrous Discoveries in Everyday Life" Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo, 2023), "2020 Seoul Photo Festival: Unphotographical Moment" Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, 2020), etc.
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