Toshio Shibata's unusual wide-angle shots locate an unexpected serenity in chaotic scenes, as a new exhibition at Antwerp's Ibasho Gallery demonstrates
Who? Japanese photographer Toshio Shibata is renowned for his breathtakingly poetic musings on the juxtaposition between man-made structures and the landscape they inhabit. He uses a large-scale camera and wide-angle lens to capture enormous industrial constructions and their natural surroundings, creating unusual compositions that confuse the viewer’s sense of scale (he often removes references to sky and horizon for this purpose). The resulting images offer a new and abstracted perspective on their subjects, enhancing their materiality and highlighting the patterns inherent in their design, be they products of engineering or nature. He is a master of colour, tonality and lighting – the only qualities he believes the photographer is able to control.
In Red Bridge, the triangular, pillar-box red supports of the structure engulf the centre of the frame, dwarfing the sea of similarly shaped evergreens that form its backdrop. While in The Abstraction of Space each element of the image – the sky, the grassy bank, the swathe of concrete that could be part of a bridge or dam, the shadow it casts and the rippling water below – is represented by a single horizontal line, one on top of the other, in what could easily be mistaken for an abstract painting. “My goal is to create a different world in my photographs,” he tells AnOther. “One that uses real life as its starting point, but does not exist within it.”
What? This month sees the photographer present his first ever solo exhibition in Belgium – a country with special significance to Shibata, who studied his medium formally at the Royal Academy in Gent in the 1970s. As well as a retrospective selection of his works – including a number of majestic black and white compositions from the first half of his career – the display showcases a new collaboration between Shibata and Belgian-Luxembourgish architect and engineer Laurent Ney. Over the course of three years, Shibata (who is currently based in Tokyo) visited the Benelux to document Ney’s various bridges – in different types of light, weather and from different angles – shedding new meaning on their design and situation in typically dreamy style.
Why? “In Toshio Shibata’s work I recognise the principal themes which are at the heart of the design of my bridges: space, time, geometry, materiality, the poetic,” says Ney of his desire to work with Shibata. But he was also interested in the fresh viewpoint the image-maker would offer on his work. “Animated by the light, the object is materialised in its context. Light brings it to life and, through the photographer’s eyes, allows us to see what cannot be formulated, neither in plans nor in numbers or words,” he explains in the exhibition catalogue, in a statement that neatly summarises the magical quality of Shibata photographs.
On Shibata’s part, the experience signalled a new chapter in his 40-year career. “When Laurent invited me to collaborate, I was feeling anxious and indecisive about photography,” he explains. “The feeling took me back 40 years to the time when I first started studying photography in Belgium. In this way, I could view this project as a reset. In contrast to my usual approach – keeping a distance from the subject; silent observation – I went back and forth to the spot many times and walked around, tried to feel the bridge physically, more intimately. The images are an improvisation to express what I felt on the spot.”
Toshio Shibata: Bridge is at Ibasho Gallery, Antwerp until October 16, 2016.
