Takashi Homma – Tokyo Suburbia

Takashi Homma, born in 1962, lives and works in Tokyo. Since the mid-1990´s he has been participating in exhibitions and has brought out a series of smaller and larger publications. He also photographs for journals, including i-D, Purple Prose, Purple Fashion, Ray Gun and numerous Japanese magazines.

Like many Japanese photographers – like contemporary photography in general – Takashi Homma´s photography is colourful, loud, taken with a certain lightness, indeed nonchalance vis-à-vis the photographed object – as if it were snapped in passing, as if it were both important and trivial.

In this apparent lightness, however, Homma touches – unlike many others – the nerve of today´s society with coolness and exactitude. In his very first book, Babyland, he takes up the theme of “babyfication”. He portrayed the infantalisation of every day life and culture in girlie groups, stuffed animals, portraits and the consumer industry for the Kids-Generation. Tokyo Suburbia maintains a similar tone, although this project, that of portraying the suburbs of Tokyo, has been photographed somewhat harder, with more distance and less hope. At the edge of the cities the cracks in the social and economic structure are at their most blatant, including those between individual desires and reality.

The exhibition at the Fotomuseum Winterthur, curated by Urs Stahel, is Takashi Homma´s first museum exhibition.