Trending Photo News No. 31: Yoshihiko Ueda's spectacular "On the Journey" shows his strong consistency

It is a spectacular exhibition. The Ueda Yoshihiko photo exhibition "Ueda Yoshihiko: The World is Always Far Away," (until November 3rd) has been running since July 19th at the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, and everything about the exhibition, from the number of works on display to the high quality of the prints and the meticulous layout of the venue, is of exceptional quality, overwhelming viewers. The words "a feast for the eyes" are truly appropriate for this exhibition.

"But it's not a retrospective," says Ueda Yoshihiko. When I spoke to him at length at the museum cafe in the Hayama Museum, he told me that what is a large-scale exhibition for a single photographer is more like an "interim report" for him. Ueda says, "The Tibet series, which I'm exhibiting as new works, is not yet complete, and I'm still on a journey. Rather, it feels like it's just beginning."

There is no need to explain Yoshihiko Ueda in detail. Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1957, Ueda has worked on numerous campaigns for Suntory Oolong Tea, Iyemon, Muji, and others, and has published over 30 photo books. While he has exhibited his work in galleries many times, this will be his first exhibition at a public art museum in 22 years, since his solo exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in 2003.

This exhibition surveys Ueda's work spanning 40 years, showcasing 500 pieces, including unpublished early works, the "Quinault" series capturing forests sacred to Native Americans, "At Home" photographing his own family, "Portrait" photographs of famous people, and his latest work photographing people in Tibet. All of the photographs, all developed and printed by Ueda himself, provide a comprehensive overview of his work.

Ueda's photographs are often said to be characterized by the use of large cameras such as 8x10 cameras and lighting, but in this exhibition he uses a variety of cameras, yet shows a surprising consistency as a photographer. Still life photographs reminiscent of French Impressionist paintings are also on display at the venue, and even these still life photographs use a variety of models. "The early pomegranate photographs were taken with an 8x10 camera, but the recent apple photographs are with a Ricoh GR. But the impression is not much different, is it? That's because what I look for in a photograph hasn't changed."

Yes, like the saying "Kobo uses any brush," Ueda creates his own unique, dense and tranquil photographic world using different subjects and different cameras. It's like the painter David Hockney, who presents a consistent world using everything from acrylic paints to pencils and, more recently, the iPad. Ueda says he finds great joy when people think that his photographs, from his early days to the present, are "all the same."

"When I first started taking photos, I seriously wondered, 'Isn't it possible to take photos that show the back side of the subject?' I wanted to take more, and capture more. I had excessive expectations of these kinds of photos, and they have always remained unfulfilled, and I feel that I have come this far. The title of this photo exhibition, 'The World is Always Distant,' comes from this feeling. I want to get closer to the essence of the world through my camera, but the more I try to get closer, the more distant the world seems. Of course, there are times when I feel joy, as if I have captured the essence of something, but it is difficult to get there. Taking photographs is just a repetition of this action."

The fact that this exhibition is being held in Hayama is of great significance to Ueda, as he had been living in both Hayama and Tokyo for many years, before moving permanently to Hayama three years ago. Yuichiro Takashima, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa Prefecture, who organized the exhibition, explains how the exhibition came about:

"Photographer Yoshihiko Ueda hasn't had an exhibition at an art museum for nearly 20 years. First, I wanted to take advantage of the museum's space to create an exhibition of his work that could only be held now. Second, I thought that by showcasing a mixture of his so-called artistic photographs as well as advertising shots, we might be able to offer a glimpse into the photographer's role in the modern world. And above all, the biggest reason was that I wanted people to be able to see the photographs he took in Hayama, including those from "at Home," in our museum, which is located right in the city. By taking advantage of the museum's distinctive high ceilings to organically assemble the photographs in the exhibition, I believe I have been able to brilliantly visualize his non-linear, multi-layered activity within the space. I also made slight variations in the display methods and lighting in each exhibition room, and I believe the overall result is like a single, magnificent piece of harmonious music."

Kaoru Kasai, a longtime collaborator of Ueda and art director of Suntory's oolong tea campaign, also designed the massive catalogue for this exhibition (a whopping 768 pages!). What is the source of the appeal of Ueda's photographs from Kasai's perspective?

"I saw Ueda's solo exhibition titled 'Portrait' about 40 years ago, and I felt that his photographs were clearly different from any I had seen up until then. They were all silvery shades, and it seemed as though they had been taken solely through the quiet light emanating from the people themselves. Around that time, I was proposing a series of portraits of literary figures and whiskey brewers for a newspaper ad for Suntory Whisky, and I suggested that he be the photographer. Ueda told me he had never done advertising photography before, but I didn't think that mattered at all. When my photographs of German literature scholar Yoshitaka Takahashi, my first job, were published in the newspaper, I felt like a door had opened for me. The oolong tea campaign was also an ad, so I planned and photographed it, but when I set foot on Chinese soil and spent time with the young people who appeared in it, I was drawn in by their innocence, and excited by this one-off experience that will likely never happen again, I forgot it was an ad, and just photographed the whole thing and went home. I believe it was Ueda's delicate sensitivity that gave birth to photographs that feel like distant memories."

Ueda has as a reference for his photo exhibition the 1984 exhibition of Irving Penn's work at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

"I saw a Penn photo exhibition when I was 27 years old, and the impact it had on me remains with me to this day. There were two things that shocked me at the time: 'This guy takes pictures of anything!' and 'This guy really loves photography.' Although the photographs on display covered a wide range of subjects, each one was finished in a way that was so typical of Penn. My legs were shaking while I was looking at the exhibition. I was so excited that I couldn't look at it any more. So I left the venue and went back the next day. And at the exhibition, I was convinced that 'this is good enough.' Penn was showing me the direction I wanted to go in, so I knew I wasn't wrong. As a photographer, I felt that this was a way of life that I could really respect."

I saw an exhibition of Irving Penn's photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2017, after his death, and was blown away by the sheer volume, high quality, diversity of subject matter, and, above all, the intense consistency that permeates them all. If Irving Penn is a world-class high-resolution image conversion device that New York boasts, then Yoshihiko Ueda could be said to be a world-class high-resolution image conversion device that Tokyo (or perhaps Hayama) boasts. Ueda's images, moreover, possess a delicate emotional quality that Penn lacks. This exhibition offers the experience of being engulfed in a delicate yet magnificent full orchestration of Ueda's images.

According to curator Takashima, "This exhibition is so stimulating that it makes you want to refer to art history rather than photography history. Not only do the works have beautiful compositions, universal themes, and people who symbolize the era, but the elaborate framing that differs from era to era, and the carefully thought-out prints and sizes for each work - the way the artists believe their works to be best - are organically linked and spread throughout the museum space, making it feel almost like a painting exhibition, or even more like an installation."

The photo exhibition is structured to trace Ueda's life from his most recent works to his earliest, giving the viewer the opportunity to relive his life as a photographer.

"Just like the exhibition, the catalogue's pages are structured to go back in time, from the present to the present, with sketches, advertising photos, and private photographs," says art director Kasai. "Looking at them all, you can see that they reflect Ueda's life, and that these photographs are all on the same line. It warmed my heart to think that Ueda lived his life treating every moment as a treasure. The catalogue's photos are arranged calmly and without emotion, like a catalog. After reading Ueda's writing that was included, I was convinced that it was the right choice."

Just as Irving Penn once set a benchmark for young Japanese photographers, Yoshihiko Ueda himself is now becoming a benchmark for young photographers around the world, particularly in Asia. Young photographers who profess Ueda's influence are emerging one after another, such as Leslie Cheung, a globally active photographer based in Shanghai, China, introduced in the sixth installment of this series (published on July 20, 2023). This year's Parco annual campaign photos were also taken by Cheung, and it's as if the Chinese photographer is paying homage to the Suntory Oolong Tea advertisements.

"I was very happy when the curator of the photo exhibition saw the finished exhibit and said, 'It's just like looking at an exhibition at MoMA.' That's exactly what I'm aiming for. Furthermore, we are in talks to have this exhibition travel overseas, so I hope that this exhibition will inspire young people overseas in the same way that I was moved by the Penn photo exhibition at MoMA."

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