First, a chance encounter: that of a Japanese artist and the ambitious gallery Lazarew. Yuriko Takagi owes the opportunity to exhibit her photography in this beautiful space because, “she looked like an artist.” And she was an artist—and an original and spectacular artist at that.
She has pursued a personal approach to photography for years, developing it in parallel to the illustrations she does for the fashion world and some of its most illustrious designers. Eighty of her photographs appear in the recent Pleats Please, showing the work of Issey Miyake. Takagi’s photographs have been exhibited at some of the world’s biggest institutions, including the National Museums of Shanghai and Tokyo.
In the new series Birth of Gravity, the result of 15 years traveling the world, she shows us naked bodies blending into nature, taking on the shape of rocks and stones. The beauty of these black-and-white photographs is overwhelming. The bodies belong to people she has met during her travels, from Argentina , Namibia , Indonesia and Japan. The images seem like stills from a Pina Bausch ballet, with each photograph calling out to the next, as if Man had been waiting for this moment, to become one with Mother Nature.
Paul AlessandrinI
Yuriko Takagi – The Birth of Gravity
Until January 15th, 2013
Galerie Lazarew Paris
14 rue du Perche
75003 Paris – France
