6 June 2009 to 22 Aug 2009
summer hours
Wednesday - Saturday 11:00 - 5:00
The Kopeikin Gallery
8810 Melrose Avenue
West Hollywood
CA. 90069
Los Angeles, CA
California
North America
p: +1 (310) 385-5894
m:
f: +1 (310) 385-7964
w: www.kopeikingallery.com/
Image � Hiroshi Watanabe, courtesy Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles
Reception and book-signing with the artist Saturday, June 6th from 7:00 - 9:00
The Kopeikin Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Japanese born and Los Angeles based photographer Hiroshi Watanabe titled "Ideology in Paradise" which is also the title of Watanabe's recently published book. Widely exhibited internationally, this is Watanabe's first solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition opens on Saturday, June 6th with a book signing and reception with the artist from 7:00 - 9:00. The exhibition will continue through July 11th. The gallery's summer hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 - 5:00. It is free and open to the public.
Although his past work has been exclusively in black and white, the artist uses color in this project to explore his fascination with North Korea and attempts to tell the viewer an unbiased story of their culture and everyday life. From 2006 - 2007 Watanabe made trips to North Korea to investigate the myths that were spoken as fact in his native Japan. North Korea was described only as a country that kidnapped Japanese, allowed police to brutalize their citizens, and left the poor to die of starvation on the streets.
Unconvinced by this one-sided perspective of North Koreans he wanted to investigate for himself. During his time in North Korea, he let curiosity guide him and allowed the process to unfold organically without imposing any agenda. These images are rich in both content and aesthetics, giving the viewer a window into a moment in time, captured with a genuine respect that is visible throughout the series.
"... the experience of looking at Hiroshi Watanabe's images is eerily like stepping into a Social Realist painting: the ruddy-cheeked young girl playing the accordion, the traditional gowns in brilliant pinks and greens of dancers swirling beneath the omnipresent image of the dear leader and the DPRK flag. One is quietly lulled into the sense that life in North Korea might, in fact, be just as it appears within the frames of these images-normal-instead of like the stories of kidnappings, military posturing, and famine."
- Aperture's Lesley Martin
Hiroshi Watanabe lives and works in Los Angeles and holds a degree from Nihon University, Japan. He has published eight books of his work and he is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The George Eastman House, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, among others. Watanabe's recent accomplishments include the Hearst 8 x 10 Biennial Award, the Center Project Competition First Prize, and the Photolucida Critical Mass Book Award.
This exhibition will continue through August 22nd. The gallery's summer hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 11:00 - 5:00.
The gallery is at 8810 Melrose Avenue, just west of Robertson Blvd. There is plenty of street parking and several city parking lots within walking distance.
If you have any questions please call the gallery at 310-385-5894.
Hiroshi Watanabe was born in Sapporo, Japan. He graduated from Department of Photography, College of Art, at Nihon University in 1975. He moved to Los Angeles after graduation and became involved in the production of TV commercials, eventually working as a producer. He later established his own production company and produced numerous commercials. He received an MBA degree from UCLA Business School in 1993. In 1995 his passion for photography rekindled, and since then he has traveled worldwide extensively, photographing what he finds intriguing at that moment and place. In 2000 he closed the production company in order to devote himself entirely to the art and became a full time photographer.
His work has been published around the world, and has been exhibited in many galleries across the United States and Japan.
Awards
1973 Advertising Photographers Association, Japan 1978 Los Angeles Times 1996 Western Art Directors Club 2000 Advertising Photographers of America, Los Angeles 2000 London Photographic Awards 2001 Advertising Photographers of America, Los Angeles 2002 Print Center 2002 Center for Photographic Art 2002 Photo Review 2003 International Photography Awards 2003 Photo Review 2003 Advertising Photographers of America, Los Angeles 2004 Black & White Spider Awards 2005 Photo Review 2005 Black & White Spider Awards 2006 Photolucida Critical Mass Book Award 2007 Photo City Sagamihara Awards 2008 Center Project competition First Prize
Collections
His work is in the permanent collections of following museums:
Philadelphia Museum of Art Santa Monica Pier 2000
Houston Museum of Fine Arts Ellis Island 2, New York 1999 White Terns, Midway Atoll 1999 El Arbolito Park, Quito, Ecuador 2002 Patient ES, Schizophrenia, San Lazaro Psychiatric Hospital 2002 Chikako Suga, Matsuo Kabuki 2003 Yuki Nonaka, Matsuo Kabuki 2003 Musume's Head, Ena Bunraku 2004 Yoroboshi, Naito Clan 2004
George Eastman House Vietnam War Memorial, Washington D.C. 1999 Church, San Lazaro Psychiatric Hospital 2002
Santa Barbara Museum of Art El Arbolito Park, Quito, Ecuador. 2002 Vietnam War Memorial, Washington D.C. 1999 Edison Pastillo, Ecuador. 2000
The Kopeikin Gallery is pleased to present two wonderful exhibitions opening on Saturday, July 18th with a reception from 6:00 to 9:00. The Gallery will feature the fourth exhibition by long time collaborators Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick.The exhibition, titled "Eisbergfreistadt," is their most recent project. The second exhibition is by Portugese photographer Edgar Martins, whose recent project is titled "The Accidental Theorist." These exhibitions will continue through August 22nd.
The gallery will be closed from August 23rd through September 8th.
Kahn & Selesnick : Eisbergfreistadt
Eisberfreistadt was conceived from the historical and often overlooked 1923 incident in which an iceberg drifted into the Baltic sea and ran aground off the German port of L�beck. These images are true to the K/S style and are staged in real locations, re-living this historical experience using both costumed people, props, and miniature scenic models. These images, allow the viewer to participate in this bizarre, unknown, historical event within our contemporary framework.. Looking at these large-scale panoramic images, we are drawn into a semi-ficticious world created by the artists, given very few clues about the actual event itself and forced to discern the line between fact and fiction. As Antoinette LeFarge states: "At the same time, I would argue that actualizing a fiction through objects and other entities removes that project from the realm of pure fiction. It is notable that the Eisbergfreistadt project (unlike some of Kahn and Selesnick's earlier work) includes almost no explicit, written narrative, apart from a single newspaper clipping. Most of the narrative must be inferred by the viewer based on her prior knowledge of history, geography, and art."
Edgar Martins
Martins photographs the beaches bordering cities in Portugal and Iceland creating flattened and timeless images. As he explains: "These nighttime beach images are all about temporal experience - there is a kind of theatricality to them, a sense of observing an abandoned stage, or a stage awaiting some event." These moments bring the viewer to another world, yet he does not manipulate or stage any of his photographs. While these images convey a sense of solitude and emptiness, the manner in which they are composed fills the viewer with a sense of calm rather than abandonment. Nostalgic props of an imminent event or one in the recent past are also an important aspect of the work in this series. As a result of his positioning of the camera and use of natural ambient light, life size objects can seem miniscule. He plays with the notion of scale and composition to confuse the viewer, not knowing whether we are viewing an inhabitable space or simply model created in its form. Even though the figures and subjects of these images appear to be contrived and manipulated for the scene, they are almost all found by the artist.
The Kopeikin Gallery has been exhibiting in Los Angeles since 1991.
We are located at 8810 Melrose Avenue, just west of Robertson Blvd.
Our summer hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 - 5:00.
Our phone number is 310-385-5894. Our website is www.kopeikingallery.com Our email address is [email protected]
