Robert Koch Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Japanese photographer Yamamoto Masao, featuring selections from his series A Box of Ku, Nakazora, Kawa=Flow, Bonsai, and Tomasu. Yamamoto's pictures are grounded in Zen philosophy, seeking beauty in everyday life and the moments we often overlook. His practice centers on the belief that meditation and careful observation reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary.
Working in small format toned silver gelatin prints, Yamamoto photographs the natural world around him: landscapes, plants, animals, and the subtle details of rural Japan and beyond. What appears subtle at first glance, conceals an otherworldly magic in Yamamoto's image making that compels a deeper look. Some of his photographs are hand colored or deliberately weathered through controlled creasing and surface treatments, a process that evokes the passage of time and personal intimacy. Animals appear throughout Yamamoto’s work with a subtle presence, sometimes meeting the viewer’s gaze. They inhabit his photographs as more than anthropomorphic subjects, bridging the physical and the spiritual while adding a surreal dimension to the intimate worlds he creates and offering reverence for the natural world we inhabit.
Yamamoto approaches his photographs as autonomous works that can stand alone, yet he also values their interplay when arranged together in groupings or installations. As he explains, "what overflowed from one photograph would flow into the next piece…like the layered notes of an orchestra." This sensibility shapes the exhibition, where multiple series are arranged to create conversations between individual photographs and across different bodies of work.
Born in Gamagori City in 1957, Yamamoto currently resides in Yamanashi, Japan. His photographs and installations have been exhibited at numerous international institutions, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the George Eastman House, Rochester; the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris; the Galerie de Moderne, Munich; the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, Rome; and the Galeria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna. Yamamoto’s photographs are included in the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the International Center of Photography, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the Sir Elton John Collection, among others. His monographs include Tori (Radius Books, 2016); Fujsan (Nazraeli Press, 2008); é (Nazraeli Press, 2005); Omizuao (Nazraeli Press, 2003); Nakazora (Nazraeli Press, 2001); and A Box of Ku (Nazraeli Press, 1998).
