On 24th January 2023, Travelling Exhibition called Photographic Images and Matter – Japanese Prints of 1970s was inaugurated at the Japan Information and Culture Center. It’s been organized by Consulate General of Japan in Karachi in collaboration with Pakistan Japan Culture Association – Sindh, in cooperation with Japan Foundation. It is a seven days long exhibition open for everyone to visitin Karachi, from 24th January – 31st January 2023.51 art pieces from 14 Japanese artists are being exhibited from 1970s.
The Consul-General of Japan in Karachi, Mr. ODAGIRI Toshio, was also present at the inauguration and made an opening speech, welcoming everyone to visit the prestigious exhibition, which takes place once a year.
Many famous personalities were part of the event including Ms. Noor Jehan Bilgrami who was the keynote speaker, Ms. Rabia Farooqui who was the guest speaker and some famous artists were present including Mr. Farrukh Shahab and Mr. Tanveer Faruqi.
The Japan Foundation continuously conducts the “Traveling Exhibitions Program” to introduce Japanese arts and culture to overseas. This exhibition is one of the Exhibitions which is part of this programme. These art pieces are exhibited in various different countries around the world and now it’s Pakistan’s turn to exhibit these Japanese cultural items.
The exhibition depicts important trends in prints during the 1970s, focusing on print-inspired trends in contemporary art of the same period. The exhibition is divided into 2 sections: An age of Photographic Expression and Images of Autonomous Matter.
An age of Photographic Expression is the section which focuses on prints made using techniques like silk-screening, offset printing and photoengraving making it easy to transform photographic images. Images of Autonomous Matter section is displaying images which shows a new trend that emerged in art using simple substances such as stone, wood, paper, cotton, steel sheets. This period also saw materialization of images, with the intention of expressing something spiritual through matter.
