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Michael
Kenna: Views of Japan In keeping with its recent focus on Japan and its relationship to Western art, the Schnitzer Museum of Art features a dozen prints by world-renowned British photographer Michael Kenna. Taken between 2001-2004 during numerous travels to Japan from his current home-base in Portland, these black-and-white, medium-format photographs demonstrate Kenna's acute sense of Japanese aesthetics, at once spare and serene.
The pure minimalism of Hillside Fence with its three tones — a black fence on white snow with a band of simple gray sky above — pares down the composition to the classical principles Kenna follows in most of his work. Abstract elegance and strict avoidance of clutter characterize Kenna's vision. "[W]hen I print I try to see the image as an abstract arrangement of lines, shapes and tonalities," he writes. "My aim is to order and balance these elements, thereby focusing attention on areas that I consider to be significant." Kenna aptly thinks of his work as visual haiku, more evocative than narratively descriptive. The atmosphere is often dreamy, as in Sapling in Snow, where the foreground sapling stands in sharp relief from the background blurred by falling snow; or in Forest Jizos, with its soft backlighting of religious sculptures, and the mist of Pagoda. Fog also functions as a veil to screen out distracting detail and provides space for the viewer's imagination. Kenna's photography does not intrude. It treats the subject matter with subtle reserve, simultaneously allowing the viewer to create her own interpretation. Even the chemical toning is delicate — Kenna sepia-tones only the highlights, which enhances the dimensionality of the prints. These images invite intimacy, and the small format of the prints encourages the viewer to approach closely. There are no people in these landscapes, but human history is always present through the marks it leaves on the land. The landscape of Forest Edge has been shaped by man. Fishing nets, fences, sculptures and other artifacts articulate an interaction of humans with their environment. Koi Pond stands out as the only non-landscape in this collection. Here movement predominates, and the mood is dynamic and fluid. Acknowledged as one of the most important contemporary landscape photographers, Kenna has received numerous awards. For example, in 2000 the French Ministry of Culture made Kenna a Chevalier of the Order of Arts & Letters. Kenna presents more than a dozen solo exhibits in prestigious institutions the world over and has published more than 20 books. First trained in advertising photography at the London College of Printing, where he acquired a tremendous technical expertise, Kenna moved to San Francisco in 1979 and became legendary photographer Ruth Bernhard's assistant and printmaker until 1987. From Bernhard, he learned to treat the negative as a starting point for the long process of producing a final print. "The negative is raw material, which a skilled and creative printmaker can mold in a thousand different ways," Kenna wrote in an interview. "There are many technical and aesthetic decisions to be made along the way, the sum of which makes a print unique and very personal." Attentive, deliberate printmaking results in exquisite craftsmanship and artistry. Kenna's prints deserve your close inspection. See them before the show closes Jan. 22. While there, also take a last look at director David Turner's display in the hallway outside the European gallery. The display is about the Western conception of beauty derived from classical Greece. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, one clearly views beauty through the prism of one's own culture. This exhibit is the first part of Turner's long-term project to explore the conceptualization of beauty through the ages.
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