The Japan Foundation is proud to present a special talk with photographer and artist Ryudai Takano

Photo Credit: 赤い服を着たポートレート作品 (Wearing a red leather coat) from 'IN MY ROOM' series, 2002. 味噌を絞り出しているスナップ写真 (04.10.12.#13) from 'Daily snapshots' series, 2004. Photos courtesy of Yumiko Chiba Associates.

This event is free to attend, but booking is essential. To book your place via Eventbrite, please click here.

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Ryudai Takano, renowned photographer, is perhaps best known for his depiction of the nude male form. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, when artists increasingly began to openly discuss gender and sexuality in their works, Takano’s early photographs are concerned with different forms of male beauty and tackle the idea of gender as a non-binary concept. His collection, “In My Room”, portraying gender-ambiguous models, won him the 31st Kimura Ihei Commemorative Photography Award in 2006 and subsequently became part of the Japan Foundation’s touring exhibition out of the ordinary / extraordinary: japanese contemporary photography which visited many UK cities, including London. Not content to specialise in just one artistic area, Takano’s other inspirations include urban landscapes, light and shadow, and capturing the everyday. 

For this special talk, taking place during Photo London where Takano is one of the exhibiting artists, he will introduce his works to date, illustrating how one artist can capture both the exceptional and the ordinary routine. Together with Lena Fritsch, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford), he will also discuss gender and bodies in photographic images and what challenges lie in these sensitive and often controversial depictions.

Takano’s works will be exhibited at booth C13 as part of Photo London, at Somerset House, London, 17th-20th May 2018.