Jen Jiun Chou, Yao Pin Liu Exhibition “THE PHOTOGRAPHER IS ON THE WAY”
Exhibition Overview
On The Road (Taiwan) x gallery 176 (Japan) Exchange Exhibition in Osaka
Exhibition Title: “THE PHOTOGRAPHER IS ON THE WAY”
Artist Name: Jen Jiun Chou and Yao Pin Liu
Venue
gallery 176
1-6-1 Hattori-motomachi, Toyonaka-shi, OSAKA, 561-0851, JAPAN
Exhibition Duration
October 4 on Friday to October 29 on Tuesday, 2024
Closed Date
Wednesday and Thursday
Open Hours
1:00 pm to 7:00 pm
*on October 5, to 5:00 pm
Admission Fee
Free
Exhibition Planning
gallery 176, On The Road
Curator
Chang Chung Yin
Exhibition Statement
The name of this joint photography exhibition “The Photographer Is On The Way” originated from a photography studio based in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan, as well as two persistent photographers, Jen Jiun and Yao Pin. They host “On the Road Photography Art Gallery” together, providing an exhibition space for artists who are passionate about photography, organizing professional photography lectures and regularly promoting photography education. Their photography art gallery provides a pleasant atmosphere for photography aesthetics and education in southern Taiwan, as well as throughout the rest of Taiwan.
On the way of photography, it is the path of landscapes cropped from the lens, both externally and internally, where the world opens up graphically to everyone. As Roland Barthes’s quote, “A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see”. If it is as what he suggested, that photography must go through a period of darkness before it can be shown, then what would it be like for the images in the world? Would photography remain as proof that the world once existed as such? What is the external world like? Photography leads us to have greater understanding of the world, and even better recognition of a person’s thoughts and patterns. Even though Jou and Liu are different in their styles, they both share a common characteristic in the language of photography; e.g. the capacity to use images to communicate meaning.
Jou is excellent in expressing the way of “Metonymy”in her images. The graphical images flipped through the negatives to present a dark visual style, so the relationship between the images and the reality can be dissolved in time and space by the ambiguous and detached negative phrase. Her works seem to be compressed into a simple dimension on a flat surface, a seemingly clear but detached character, behind which there is a knowledge gap about post photography, an unavoidable gender issue and indelible traces of viewing. Perhaps as a kind of image representation, the cracks opened by her works, which also allow the viewer to enter into the consciousness of her works at the same time, and the unrecognizable reality becomes a visual imagination for re-association and definition.
Liu’s works are infused with symbolic punctum in a choreographed and ornamental style, while viewing his images one is also drawn by the symbolic language he puts into his works. As quotes by John Berger “A photograph has multiple meanings. It isolates, preserves, and presents a moment taken from a continuum.”He is accustomed to using photography as a narrative to tell his unique life experiences and memories. In his works, there are stories and memories of the past that are interconnected with his life experiences, and he uses photography as a symbol for exploring his personal thoughts and emotions. What’s more, in his ritualized photographic construction, the image is also involved in the identity of the subject in the cultural gender shaping. In his images, photography is not his ultimate goal. Instead he takes images as the subject of visual language manipulation, which is the language he constructs with photography. Visual language manipulation is also the most intriguing feature of Liu’s works.
Image is a language of silence. It is also a symbol of a complex human ideology, which graphically unfolds in front of the viewers. The metaphor of “The Photographer Is On The Way” is not only the spirit of “On the Road Photography Art Gallery”, but also marks the perseverance of the two photography partners while on the road, from southern Taiwan to a country rich in culture, Japan.
Chang Chung Yin, Curator
Exhibition Plan
in preparation
