Japan: A Love Story
Michael Kenna
Nazraeli Press
English, Japanese
Hardcover
Edition of 5,000
136 pages
330 × 260 mm
2024
ISBN 9781590055931
The entrance to a sanctuary, isolated in the middle of a lake. A solitary tree in a snowy landscape. A white bird blending in it. Michael Kenna’s photographs are as polite and elegant as Japanese people. He makes marvelous use of water, earth and plants, to remind us just how beautiful our planet is when we take care of it and dress it delicately. In fact, Michael Kenna has been photographing landscapes around the world for over 50 years. His in-depth explorations and imagery of Japan, which he first visited in 1987, stand out as perhaps his most distinguished and well-known works.
(Source: www.blind-magazine.com/news/japan-a-love-story/)
About the Artist
Michael Kenna’s mysterious photographs, often made at dawn or in the dark hours of night, concentrate primarily on the interaction between the natural landscape and human-made structures. Kenna is both a diurnal and nocturnal photographer, fascinated by light when it is most pliant. With long time-exposures, which might last throughout the night, his photographs often record details that the human eye is not able to perceive.
Kenna is particularly well-known for the intimate scale of his photography and his meticulous personal printing style. He works in the traditional, non-digital, silver photographic medium. His exquisitely hand crafted black and white prints, which he makes in his own darkroom, reflect a sense of refinement, respect for history, and thorough originality.
michaelkenna.com
(Source: https://www.michaelkenna.com/resume.php)
About the Publisher
Founded in 1990, Nazraeli Press has published over 600 titles on the fine and applied arts. The press is known for its unorthodox use of common materials – such as papers, wood, plastic, metals – and for introducing elements of handwork into otherwise mass-produced objects. The press’s books have themselves been the subject of exhibitions and books about books.
Formats range from postcard-sized artist’s books to oversized monographs. In addition to traditionally-bound books, the press has published work in scroll format; loose cards in plexiglass boxes; portfolios of original photographs; and, since 2001, a subscription-based series of 16-page artist’s books, called “One Picture Books”, which was relaunched in an upscaled and upgraded format in 2018. Limited to 500 numbered copies, each “One Picture Book” contains a signed, original photograph by the featured artist.
https://www.nazraeli.com/
(Source: https://www.nazraeli.com/about)
