WATANABE YOHEI
Under the Photograph
Under the Photograph
Below the eyes, a coat of fur on a plot of land made of leaning plants. A brown cover laid on a vacant lot of soil and gray stones to hold it in place. Flowers the color of lipstick planted in a circular arrangement. A concrete cliff catching the gold-colored afternoon sun. Faded red and green intertwining roofs and a gray street, lined with trees. Pet bottles set in front of the house next to soil and flowerpots.
Under the Photograph comprises multiple landscape photographs taken with a medium format camera and scanned images. There is no distinction between the top and bottom for a camera (a photograph). According to Watanabe, the possibility “to look down” from all sides of a photograph was taken into account to create the series. This idea is accentuated via the insertion of scanned images of plastic beads and trapezoid-shaped papers among the photographs as a play with perspective. The scenery of Tokyo, photographed in the afternoon sun to signify a relationship with the sun, calls to mind a dissimilated portrait of a city taken in outer space.
