The futuristic architecture envisioned by Marinetti and San’t Elia one-hundred years ago is more futuristic than even the most sleekest digital architecture today.
Shiro Kasamatsu (1898–1991) was born in Tokyo. He began his art studies at the age of thirteen. Although he collaborated fruitfully with publishers such as Watanabe Shozaburō or Unsodo, he was intrigued by the independent movement of sosaku hanga, in which the artists were both designers and printers, having full control over the creative process. However, it was no sooner than in the late 1950s that Kasamatsu realised his dream of independence. His main subjects included landscapes and city views; he excelled in dusk and night scenes. Kasamatsuʼs masterful use of lighting effects allowed him to evoke an atmosphere of tranquil melancholy. His self-carved prints are less smooth and refined than his shin hanga pieces, but they gain much in simplicity and expressiveness.
Top to bottom, left to right: Flower Shower, 1939 [source]; Misty Evening at Shinobazu Pond, 1932 [source]; Spring Night at Ginza, 1934 [source]; Dusk at Futago, 1939 [source]; Sunset on Furutone River, 1939 [source]; Balcony Terrace of Kanaya Hotel, 1941 [source]; Passage, 1962 [source]; Autumn in Ohara, 1963 [source].
Saul Leiter, born in Pittsburgh, has until recently been a relatively obscure figure in modern photography. His colour prints were first show at the Artist’s Club in the 1950s, a hang out spot for many of the great Abstract Expressionist; however his non-commercial work remained wholly unknown until the late 20th century. His photographs embody the urban pastoral, combining elements of stillness, tenderness and grace through the portrayal of small constellations of subjects, often viewed through mirrors, windows fog and rain in the madness of a New York setting.
After several exhibitions at Howard Greenberg Gallery throughout the 1990s, Leiter’s work experienced a surge of popularity after a monograph, Early Color, was published by Steidl in 2006.
A retrospective of his work will be on show at the Photographers’ Gallery from the 22nd of January.
Greg Girard is a Canadian photographer who’s work consists of landscapes, interiors and portraits which carry a consistent mood of contemporary darkness and globalisation. It reflects the evolution of the city and how its inhabitants experience and react to it. His photographs express movement and they emphasize the idea that reality is something in constant transformation.
Girard has spent most of his career exploring and documenting the social and physical transformations of Asia’s urban areas. He first travelled to Hong Kong in the 70′s, where he later settled and started working as a freelance photographer, focusing on documentary and editorial photography for publications such as Time, Newsweek, Fortune and New York Times Magazine.
Girard’s first book documents Kowloon, a city in Hong Kong that has since been erased from the face of the planet - City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City- was published in 1993. The project aims to question the reality of Kowloon Walled City and explore it behind its phenomenal evolution, through a series of photographs of the anarchic architecture and complexity of the city.
The walled City of Kwaloon - 1987
As time goes by, the Kowloon’s lost memories live through Girard’s influential pictures, allowing a revisitation to the fragility of such a vast, historical and sentimental architecture from the past, which is surviving through time and photography.
See more of Greg Girard’s work here - Or show him some love on Instagram
