Silver Haikus, Asia Photographed by Michael Kenna

Forged in the 1970s, Michael Kenna's formal vocabulary is a synthesis of several of the 20th century's photographic avant-gardes. Since his first visit to Japan in 1987, he has constantly returned to Asia to examine the archipelago's landscapes through the prism of his aesthetic, before broadening his horizons to China, South Korea, India and South-East Asia in the 2000s.
He has affinities with the classical arts of East Asia. The monochrome, economy of means, bold use of emptiness and desire to transcend the subject are readily reminiscent of Japanese ink painting (shuimohua, sumi-e). Similarly, certain compositions evoke Japanese lacquer work (including the maki-e technique), while plays on scale can transform a snowy landscape into calligraphy. Going beyond aesthetics, these links also include the acceptance of slowness, the quest for perfection, the cyclical return to the motif, a craft ethic and even a spiritual dimension.

For Michael Kenna, as in Chinese, Korean and Japanese art, these processes and principles often converge towards a subtle poetry, which may reside in the dignity of a rock or in a conversation between a detail and its environment. This ability to distil emotion from a landscape has led some commentators to say that Michael Kenna is the author of visual haikus.
The exhibition offers a sensitive experience of Michael Kenna's Asian landscapes, exploring the bridges between photography and local artistic traditions in nine thematic sections, each of them introduced by a dialogue between a print and a work from the Guimet Museum’s collections.
The exhibition will also take visitors behind the scenes of the creative process, with cross-disciplinary sections on the making of images (from the camera to the darkroom to the book) and on working with motifs.
 

Curation:
Édouard de Saint-Ours,
Curator of photographic collections at the Guimet Museum

Exhibition catalogue:
Haïkus d’argent, L’Asie photographiée par Michael Kenna. Silver Haikus, Asia Photographed by Michael Kenna
A Musée Guimet / Skira Paris co-publication 
176 pages, 100 illustrations
Price: 35 €
Languages: bilingual French / English

Podcast of the exhibition
Follow Michael Kenna on a photographic and personal journey through some of his most emblematic works. 8 episodes to discover as you visit the exhibition. 
In partnership with Studio Nova.