Kohei Kawatani: Tofu - Knife
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40,00€
About
Tofu-Knife by Kohei Kawatani is a brilliant exploration of the complex relationship between the artistic and commercial in contemporary photography. In its form and design, the photobook mimics both a scientific database – all photographs are clearly listed in the index and catalogued by numbers – and a customer magazine – the photographs are clean and polished, printed on a thin, glossy paper usually used in the advertising context. The depicted objects and environments are above all visually pleasing – lush vegetation, subtle textures, neat interiors, and alluring objects whose only decipherable function is the aesthetic one. Deliberate decontextualization reduces the images to ready-made objects, as well as foregrounding them the fluidity of their meaning, susceptibility to various creative interpretations. Even though Kawatani’s visual expression is decisive and sharp like a (tofu) knife, his photographs are only seemingly impersonal – his unexpected framing, attention to detail, and suggestive use of color hint not only at subjectivity but a certain delicacy, tenderness, and softness (similar, in a way, to tofu itself).”
— Barbara Gregov, Organ Vida Festival, Zagreb.
104 pages softcover book
15.6 x 23.0 cm
Limited edition of 500 copies
2021
First prize of the Kassel Dummy Award 2020
Charlotte Cotton (Curator,Editor) prize of the JAPAN PHOTO AWARD 2019
Published by MASA
Product details
15.6 x 23 cm
