This special catalogue, published to commemorate the eponymous exhibition at the Saitama Museum of Art, contains works by all five featured artists as well as a photographic record of the exhibition itself.

Just like the exhibition itself, the “New Photographic Objects” catalogue emphasizes the materiality of their medium photography. Within the ever-accelerating development and societal diffusion of digital technologies, the included artists – Daisuke Yokota, Nerhol, Takashi Makino, Hiroshi Takizawa, Teppei Sako – continue to update the photographic language using techniques such as image processing, copying, scanning, physical manipulation, social media and various interactive methods, freeing the medium from its obsession with decisive moments.
Each artist’s work is presented as a physically separate book made with different materials, formats, bindings and dimensions, highlighting their distinct aims and forms of expression.

Teppei Sako’s “Poor, Video, Anytime God”, a series of everyday snapshots, is arranged in a long, strip-like photobook. Nerhol’s artworks made by layering dozens of printed photographs or video frames, then cutting into the material to create three-dimensional photo sculptures, are documented and examined in detail. Hiroshi Takizawa’s series of photographs shot in Berlin’s subway system are printed opposite metal sheets, with the “true” image to be glanced at in the reflection of the mirror-like surfaces. Daisuke Yokota presents the result of his manipulated images printed on see-through film, further emphasizing the relationship between memory/present and image/reality in his works. Takashi Makino’s processed images and videoworks of landscapes, natural phenomena and objects finds representation in the form of a foldout-able liporello-style book.

“New Photographic Objects” captures a cross-section of contemporary photographic art in Japan and highlights the works of five artists who aim for a radical rethinking of the medium’s forms.

The catalogue includes information about each individual artist and the exhibited works as well as essays by Itaru Oura and Shiori Sahara (all texts in Japanese only).