JP-22 (SIGNED)

Taiji Matsue
JP-22 (SIGNED)

Photographs: Taiji Matsue

Text: Minori Shimuzu

Publisher: Daiwa Radiator Factory Co., Ltd., and Taro Nasu Gallery

118 pages

Year: 2006

ISBN: 4-9901842-8-9

Comments: Illustrated hardcover, 30 x 31 cm, color photographs. First edition, first printing. A few scratches on the cover, otherwise in very good condition. Text in Japanese and English. Signed by Taiji Matsue. Design: by Hideki Nakajima

Matsue's exquisitely detailed, impossibly sharp color aerial photographs of urban and industrial landscapes, forests, golf courses, suburban neighborhoods, highways cutting across farmland, shipping docks and marinas retain all the dense, horizonless texture of his previous black and white work. Yet where Matsue's monochromatic images exude asceticism, his color images burst with an unexpected sensuousness, held in check by artist's rigorous framing and perspective. Matsue holds a degree in Geography, and his intimate understanding of the literal and conceptual representation of place, as well as its attendant social, political, economic and environmental use and impact, give this highly refined work an even greater allure. An astute essay by Minori Shimuzu contextualizes Matsue's singular work along with Emmet Gowin's aerial photographs and the sublime 19th-century work of Carleton Watkins. And like his recent monograph, Taiji Matsue (Ugeyan, 2003), this book is beautifully produced.