Journey through time to explore the impact of a cultural and architectural crown jewel of Japan, the Katsura Imperial Villa. Through photographs taken by Ishimoto Yasuhiro, one of Japan’s most celebrated photographers, Dr. Yasufumi Nakamori, the Senior Curator of International Art (Photography), at Tate, London and an authority on the late artist’s work, studies the photographs as a means to gaining insight of the artist’s vision, the villa’s influence on modern architecture, and how both helped shape Japan’s journey of post-war modernization.
This is a virtual, lecture-style webinar available exclusively to Portland Japanese Garden Members.
The webinar will be moderated by our own Aki Nakanishi, Arlene Schnitzer Curator of Culture, Art, and Education. This program is in connection to the art exhibition, Ishimoto Yasuhiro: Architecture + Nature + Culture, on show now through April 11, 2021.
Photo: Ishimoto Yasuhiro, Katsura Villa, 1953–1982 ©Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Center
About Dr. Yasufumi Nakamori
Since November 2018, Dr. Yasufumi Nakamori has served as Senior Curator, International Art (Photography) at Tate, the United Kingdom, and oversees the development of Tate’s collection of photography as well as of photography exhibitions and displays at Tate Modern in London. He co-curated the current exhibition Zanele Muholi, which will be on view when Tate Modern reopens in May.
Prior to joining the Tate, Nakamori headed the department of photography and new media at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, developing new displays of photography and time-based media within the context of a global encyclopedic art museum, including staging exhibitions with Leslie Hewitt, The Propeller Group, Omer Fast, Naoya Hatakeyama and Amar Kanwar. He was also responsible for numerous key acquisitions which transformed and diversified the museum’s photography collection.
He previously served as curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2008 to 2016, creating ground-breaking exhibitions focusing on Japanese art and photography such as Katsura: Picturing Modernism in Japanese Architecture, Photographs by Ishimoto Yasuhiro (2010)(a recipient of the 2011 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for Smaller Museums), and For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968-1979 (2015-16). As a noted scholar of Japanese art and architecture, Nakamori has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues and has taught graduate seminars at Hunter College, the City University of New York, and Rice University. He is a 2016 fellow of the Getty Leadership Institute, and holds a bachelor’s degree from Waseda University, a Juris Doctor from the University of Wisconsin, and a PhD in the History of Art and Visual Studies from Cornell University.
Photo by: Dan Dennehy, Minneapolis Institute of Art