2 days ago
Rare vintage shots and first-time shows at TOP's 30th anniversary
On reaching Risshakuji Temple in Yamagata Prefecture during his travels described in 'The Narrow Road to the North,' haiku poet Matsuo Basho wrote: 'In the deep silence / only the voice of the cicada / pierces the rock.'
Basho's poetic ideal of exploring the overlap between the eternal and the transient — as suggested in the contrast between the rock and the seasonal cicada in the poem — is a key tenet in the Tokyo Museum of Photographic Art (TOP) 30th anniversary program. The 2025 schedule includes two contrasting exhibitions showcasing the museum's permanent collection, titled 'Continuity and Change' and 'transphysical,' and three solo shows that focus on the work of Takano Ryudai, Luigi Ghirri and Pedro Costa.
While Basho provides an overall thematic tone for how the museum celebrates this milestone, Tetsuro Ishida, lead curator of the anniversary exhibitions, uses the analogy 'same soil, different crops' to describe how the two TOP Collection exhibitions are divided into a total of 10 contrasting sections run by different curators.
