Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche, 29.08.2021
First published on her blog, published here with permission.
Yesterday, a photobookjockey on Japanese photography took place in the impressive setting of the church of San Telmo Museum, by Juan Cires, a great specialist in this topic. Juan knows Japanese photography like (almost) nobody, and especially its photobook side.
Being able to enjoy his presence, yesterday in the church, was a luxury. Dansu, dansu, dansu turned out to be a sort of performance, mixing image, film, sound and books, as well as reading of texts.
Japan is a world apart, and as Juan said, entering its culture is, for a foreigner, like finding himself on Mars. He led us by the hand through its history, its traditions, through the hidden corners of its physical or sentimental geography, all represented in the books. Part of those were from Juan’s collection, a well-kept treasure that he wanted to share with us, and the other part came from the more contemporary collection deposited in San Telmo. In this way, any representation of Dansu, dansu, dansu is unique, although Juan has already shown it twice, in Madrid and Granada.
Japanese photobooks are a special world within photobooks, so ingrained is this medium of expression within Japanese photography. This would not be understood without the book, its natural means of communication, almost of existence.
Ryuichi Kaneko, a great historian of Japanese photography, a great collector, and also participant in the Photobook Phenomenon exhibition, died last July, and this bookjockey was also a tribute to him, the one that has worked the most to publicize the Japanese photobook throughout the world.
Dansu, dansu, dansu gets its name from a novel by Haruki Murakami, and Juan picks up the idea of ‘dance’, to create a choreography of images and sound that go from traditional Butō to the most ferocious experimentation.
Here you have the complete list of books shown, in order of appearance (books with * belong in Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection, San Telmo Museoa) :
Nami, Syoin Kajii/梶井 照陰, FOIL, 2017 *
Kandō/感動, Harumichi Saito/齋藤陽道, AKAAKA, 2011
Bloody Moon, Keiko Nomura/野村 恵子, Tosei-sha/冬青社, 2006
Rasen Kaigan/螺旋海岸, Lieko Shiga/志賀理江子, AKAAKA, 2013 *
Shooting Star Fireworks, Vol.1, 1978
Onsen Geisha/温泉芸者, Hirachi Isao/平地勲, Nora-sha/のら社, 1975
The Dry Weather, Takayuki Ogawa/小川隆之, in The Photo Image 6, 1970
Red Flower, The Women of Okinawa/赤花 アカバナー、沖縄の女, Mao Ishikawa/石川真生, Session Press/セッションプレス, 2016 *
Kuroyami [Black Darkness], Sakiko Nomura/野村佐紀子, Akio Nagasawa Publishing, 2008 *
Mother’s, Ishiuchi Miyako/石内 都, Sukyo-sha/蒼穹舎, 2002 *
Teikō/抵抗 [Resistance], Kazuo Kitai/北井一夫, Murai-sha, 1965
Chizu/地図 [The map], Kikuji Kawada/川田 喜久治, Akio Nagasawa Publishing, 2014 *
Tokyo/東京, Masatoshi Naitō/内藤正敏, Meicho Shuppan/名著出版, 1985
Kamaitachi/鎌鼬, Eikoh Hosoe/細江 英公, Aperture, 2009 *
One, Ken Ohara/小原 健, Benedikt Taschen Verlag, 1997 *
I can’t recall my first light/私は初めて見た光を覚えていない, Sayuki Inoue/井上佐由紀, nap gallery, 2018 *
The bookjockey format, devised by Bonifacio Barrio Hijosa is ideal for proposing a broader and enriching experience, a more playful or in-depth reading, approaching the book in a different way. This, the second in the already long list of activities organized by the Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection in San Telmo, has been intense, exciting and spectacular.
I hope the list is extended. From here, a thousand thanks to Juan Cires and San Telmo for the organization.
#spreadtheloveofphotobooks
BookJockey 