JUNICHIRO HIRAMATSU
THE JAPANESE EYE
11.08.–23.08.2009
From the 11th till 23rd August 2009 WestLicht. Schauplatz für Fotografie will be showing an exhibition of works by the Japanese amateur photographer Junichiro Hiramatsu. The exhibition, curated by Thomas Freiler, will be presenting around 400 photographs made by Junichiro Hiramatsu on his numerous European trips.
Junichiro Hiramatsu, a passionate European traveller, is a collector and engaged observer. His pictures offer us the opportunity to see ourselves through the eyes of a »foreigner« – although his passionate interest in Europe has turned him more and more into a confidant. Hiramatsu seems to be looking for the Europe of the classic photographers and that specific image that has been carried to far-off places through their pictures.
Junichiro Hiramatsu was born in Kiyosu shi, Aichi prefecture in 1949 and grew up in Nagoya. He graduated in economics from Nanzan University in 1972. He was interested in the fine arts from a very early age. A particular fascination for automibile design has led to him now being a world-famous collector of Ferrari cars and an authority on the matter. With the travel through Europe in 1973 as a start, he visited Europe more than 90 times and that forms the basis of his photography. He has hold his exhibition twice at Galleria d Arte Nagoya and his photo series On the Streets of Europe is now appearing in Monthly Nagoya.
Thomas Freiler (*1962) graduated from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and has been working in the area of artistic photography ever since. He participated in numerous exhibitions and received a vast number of prizes and scholarships. Since 1998 he has been teaching in colleges of art and universities; since 2006 he is the head of the laboratory for photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Optically Thomas Freiler’s work deals with medium-related and theoretical aspects of photography – tests and experiments, photographs about photography, perception, reality and its construction. The subject of the photographs is photography itself.
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