Showa 92

Kazuyoshi Usui
Showa 92

Photographs: Kazuyoshi Usui

Publisher: Zen Foto Gallery

80 pages

Pictures: 39

Year: 2015

Price: 45 €

Comments: Hardcover with slipcase, 26,8 x 19 cm, color photographs. First edition. In very good condition !

Having released the first installment of his Showa series Showa 88 in 2011, Kazuyoshi Usui’s second publication Showa 92 once again takes viewers along the photographer's own heightened world of the past and imagined future, bridging the gap between the two to form a photobook that reconstitutes the very meaning and binaries of the real and fake. Published by Zen Foto Gallery and designed by Satoshi Machiguchi, founder of Match & Company, Showa 92 brings together a body of work which introduces a world of impossibilities, where the present and future have been reworked to create a world that brims with both cinematic and poetic sensibilities. Within, Usui presents a visual narrative half dipped within the turbulences and realities of which symbolized the Showa period of Japan’s past, simultaneously bringing viewers forth into an imagined reality of Japan where good-bad taste reigns true, a world that is both stylish and original, envisioned and reflected through the photographic lens of Kazuyoshi Usui.

Born in Tokyo, 1975, Usui graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University, Department of Photography in 1998 and studied under the pioneering photographer Hosoe Eikoh. He lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. His past solo exhibitions include “Macaroni Christian” (Konica Minolta Plaza Gallery, 1996), “Showa 88” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2011 and Shadai Gallery 2013), “Showa 92” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015), “Showa 88-95” (KKAG, 2018), and “Showa 96” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019).

Usui has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including “San Marino International Photomeeting” in 1997, “In & Out” at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, “A Vision of Japan” at Galleri Balder, Oslo, “Inside Out: Through Japanese and Israeli Lenses” at TEO Center for Culture, Art and Content, Herzliya, and “Focus” at Schaefer International Gallery, Maui Arts & Culture Center.

His main publications are “Macaroni Christian” (Bijutsu Shuppan, 2006), “Showa 88” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2011), “Showa 92” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015), “Showa 96” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), and “Photography? End?” (Magic Hour Edition, 2022). In 2015 he was responsible for the planning and cinematography of the movie “The 14th Dalai Lama”. Usui’s works are included in public collections such as Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in Yamanashi, Tokyo Polytechnic University, and the Amana Collection, Tokyo.