Who: Yoshiyuki Okuyama / website / instagram
Where: 3rd floor of PARCO Museum, Shibuya / tokyoartbeat
When: Jan. 22 - Feb. 7, 2016 10am-9pm, (500 yen entry fee)
Okuyama, a young photographer in Tokyo, has erupted in the fashion scene scoring not just the cover of the January 2016 issue Ginza magazine, but the next 80 pages after it. His colorful and often surreal photos are linked by a sense of boisterous energy that’s woven into the pictures along with youthful curiosity, a clever sense of beauty, and genuine fun. This description also works as an explanation as to why he’s one of the hottest fashion photographers in Tokyo.
Also worth noting- Okuyama shoots everything on 35mm film- namely Fujifilm disposables and a Contax T3- these small and unpretentious little cameras provide the fitting look for the fresh punchy vibrancy his subject matter is electrified by. Interestingly, Ginza magazine and Fujifilm got together for some special edition disposable cameras wrapped in his photos.
The exhibition, Bacon Ice Cream (which apparently, is a real thing), has Parco levels of production and whimsy- large inkjet prints, some under acrylic with others hung simply on the wall, are spaced loosely throughout the venue. Every image is ready to be tumbled- each picture is worth thousands of notes on aesthetic all over tumblr. Halfway through the show visitors must enter a refrigerator door and head down a narrow, blue-lit, hallway to enter the next section of the gallery. Once all has been seen and done, near the exit one will find some Okuyama merch- t-shirts, camera straps, sticker sets, inkjet prints, iphone cases, and of course, copies of the photobook that accompanies the show. Parco Museum has smartly allowed photography in the venue- with the majority of young visitors already plugged into social networks, their hashtagging is obviously going to help attendance.
Bacon Ice Cream is a good time and worth the 500 yen entry fee- it’s up until February 7th, 2016.
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