PhotoIshiuchi Miyako / Each Modern
TextWenchien Wu
The photographic artist Miyako Ishiuchi is the third Japanese photographer who is awarded the Hasselblad Award, as well as the first-ever Asian female photographer to receive this prize. Ishiuchi had been invited to exhibit at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). And her works are collected in world-renowned museums such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the SFMOMA.
The Japanese female art master Miyako Ishiuchi debuts her solo exhibition in Taiwan. Ishiuchi uses photographs of the objects and various parts of human bodies to have an in-depth discussion about the issues of life, senility, and death. This exhibit will display Ishiuchi's iconic series of works created after the series Yokosuka Story & mainly focus on women's perspectives that describe how important a person faces up to things.

Different from the youth, their aging skins, the lines of their palms after doing the housecleaning, & the wrinkles and spots on the skin represent more clearly the theme of being forty, even though it didn't particularly focus on the face of the characters.
Innocence is another series with the same body-themed works. This series uses a more realistic portrayal to shoot the body's scars. The close-up shooting of bodies and making the faces invisible highlight the significance behind the scars instead. This series of photographs express how strong life would be and symbolize pureness.

Closer to Your Mother
In the process of growing up, we’d always argue with our mothers or get closer to them. While getting older, we gradually and more understand everything our mothers had borne throughout all these years. And the series Mother's is a work that tells how Miyako Ishiuchi faces up to her relationship with her mother. After organizing the possessions left behind by her mother, Ishiuchi photographed the left belongings to cure her inner pain. Also, this is another way, being a female in an equal state, that Ishiuchi keeps in communication with her passing mother.


Looking at the Pain Through Another Perspective
Ishiuchi Miyako paid a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 2007. Ishiuchi selected the clothes and objects from the Museum collection and then photographed a series named ひろしま/ hiroshima. What Ishiuchi wants to present through her photographs is the beauty of these objects themselves, instead of the scars of history.

Via the lace dress, school uniforms, a backpack with embroidery, and sneakers, photographed by Ishiuchi, even though there were torn and yellowed situations, these objects told people a story of what happened in a war literally. Meanwhile, the significance of these objects expresses their beauty itself. Like, some had ever chosen these things with their elegant tastes to make their lives brilliant.

Great Minds Thinking Alike
The series Frida by Ishiuchi is a photographic creation that Ishiuchi Miyako was commissioned by the curator of the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City to shoot the left belongings of Frida Kahlo, a legendary Mexican artist. Even stuck with polio and suffering from a car accident, Frida Kahlo brought her talents and imagination into play in the art field. Ishiuchi Miyako hits a chord with what Kahlo had suffered. Therefore, the artificial limb, tattered shoes, and protective equipment showcase unique features of themselves through Ishiuchi's camera lens.


Ishiuchi Miyako has said, she does not deliberately photograph with the theme of women. However, as a woman, Ishiuchi always presents her works from a new perspective while photographing such women-themed works. Guided by one's talent perhaps is a natural-born skill.

The Exhibition of Ishiuchi Miyako is a Japanese female master of photography’s debut exhibit in Taiwan. This exhibit wants to tell people that the aging, young, colorful, or yellowed objects are part of us and can't split. Let's go appreciating Ishiuchi's exhibit to know that she uses a gentle perspective to guide visitors on how to face up to the issues of life.
The Exhibition of Ishiuchi Miyako
Time: Jun 24 to Jul 30
Venue: Each Modern
Open Hours: 12:00~17:00 (Closed on Monday and Sunday)
Read more
These Flowers 2022: Fully Exploration of the Crossover Collaboration
Elegant yet Powerful Creations: Fang-Yu Chou's Wonderworld
New Aesthetics Composition of Heinrich Wang’s Tea Tasting
An Unmissable Tourist Attraction: Setouchi Triennale 2022
Tadao Ando's Termination of Traveling Exhibition in Taipei