RPS Kyoto Paperoles 2022 2nd Exhibition, Yusuke Takagi Photography Exhibition “SPIN”

07/18/2022

The second exhibition at RPS Kyoto Paperoles, is Yusuke Takagi`s photography exhibition “Spin L’artiere Edition Publication Commemoration Exhibition.”

Takagi participated in the Photobook Masterclass, a photobook workshop organised by RPS in 2019, and worked on this work on the theme of alcoholism and its cycle of addiction; a completely handmade artistbook was published in November 2020 in a limited edition of 72 copies.

In 2021, the book was awarded PHotoESPAÑA 2021 Best Self-Published Book of the Year Award and in 2022, PhotoBoox Award 2022, which led to the publication of a trade edition by the Italian publisher L’Artiere in June.

L`Artiere is the publishing arm of Grafiche dell`artire, which has a reputation for the quality of its printing and has published a number of excellent art and photography books. In this exhibition, trial prints of Takagi’s photobooks, known as ‘ print-sheets’, are brought back from Italy and exhibited to the public, recreating the process of producing the photobooks.

©Yusuke Takagi / SPIN

SPIN

My father and I kissing in the photo, as a young child.
Contrary to this, my childhood memories are completely buried.

Four years have passed since my father was taken to the hospital for alcoholism. He had been drinking heavily ever since I can remember, and he and my mother would fight constantly when they were drinking at night.

After his hospitalization, my father was found to be suffering from alcoholic dementia due to abnormal brain atrophy caused by years of heavy alcohol consumption. He was unable to understand or recognize that he was an alcoholic at all, and when he returned home, he was extremely likely to drink again. He was moved to an assisted living facility about eight months after his hospitalization.

My father was consumed by alcohol that crept into the void of his mind and ravaged his mind and body.

Through such an alcoholic father, I was forced to confront human weakness, the sadness and emptiness of life, and the fragility of life. When I look back on my own past growing up with such a father, I am forced to confront the memories and emotions that were dormant in the depths of my soul. I was forced to re-experience the undigested memories and emotions that I must have had in my childhood, such as feelings of constant unfulfillment, loneliness, guilt, alienation, frustration without reason, and uncontrollable emotions. I was astonished to be reminded that the everyday life I took for granted at the time was not the norm in the eyes of the world. Most of all, I was confronted with who I am, “discovering” that I had been acting defensively and alarmingly to keep a lid on those memories and feelings. The blade of alcohol, the blade that had destroyed my father, was flipped to me, together related as parent and child. And now I have an unfathomable fear that this blade will turn on my son as well. I have had too much to drink, and I can be foul-mouthed and emotional towards my son. The thought of my son having to go through the same horrible things as I did is distressing, and the word “chain” haunts me like a ghost.

Both my father, who became addicted to alcohol, and I, who grew up with a father like that, have a void in our hearts that they cannot carry. As I say, everyone has a void in their hearts to varying degrees. Everyone has the potential to turn to alcohol to fill that void, so I learned from my father to understand him as a human being with a void in his heart, rather than labeling alcoholics as corrupt.

Unfortunately, my father’s recovery has been extremely difficult. But my son and I will work together to break free from the spell cast by the chain of events.

Yusuke Takagi

Dates: July 23rd (Sat) to 31st (Sun) 2022
1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

◉Opening reception + artist talk: Saturday, July 23, 7:00 pm.

Admission is free, no reservation required.
No food or beverages will be served at the opening reception or artist talk.
We ask for your cooperation in preventing the spread of coronavirus infection by wearing masks, washing hands, disinfecting, etc.

Venue: RPS Kyoto Paperoles
Please search by
603 Oimatsu-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
or
603 Itsutsuji-agaru, Shichihonmatsu-dori, Oimatsu-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Link to google map is
https://goo.gl/maps/xiFJCrikwkdLQazGA
Nearest bus stop: Kamishichiken or Senbon Imadegawa

Profile | Yusuke Takagi

Born in 1979 in Tokyo, Japan.
After graduating from the sociology department at Meiji Gakuin University, he began working as a freelance photographer in 2005. In 2010, he won the Human Rights Award in FCCT/OnAsia PHOTO CONTEST 2010 for his work on the trafficking of Burmese people.

In the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he took up the theme of Japanese society. The dummy book, which captures the world after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident from the perspective of a father, won the Special Prize at the 2017 FUAM Istanbul Photobook Dummy Award and published a photobook, “Kagerou”, by AKINA Books in 2018. The book has been named as one of the best photobooks of 2018 by TIME magazine.

In 2020, he self-published artist book “SPIN”, which expresses the feelings and the future that he learned from his father, who lived with his alcoholic father, and from the deep anxiety he found in the midst of that anxiety, as well as the feelings and the future that he learned from his father’s addiction. This book won PHotoESPAÑA 2021 Best Self-Published Book of the Year Award and PHOTOBOOX AWARD 2022.

©️Yusuke Takagi / SPIN

©️Yusuke Takagi / SPIN

©️Yusuke Takagi / SPIN

Exhibition, Kyoto annex "Paperoles”