Yuki Onodera: Here, No Balloon

EVENT DESCRIPTION

This will be the first exhibition in Hong Kong by internationally renowned Japanese artist Yuki Onodera, who has been based in Paris for just three decades. Onodera is known for singular experimental works that employ photography as their medium, but extend beyond its bounds to encompass an astonishing variety of expression that includes collages measuring several metres, and the use of drip painting techniques.

wamono art will present Onodera’s 2022 Here, No Balloon series, which takes as its theme the bronze hot-air balloon monument by Bartholdi that once stood in the Porte des Ternes in Paris, but was melted down and lost to posterity in the 1940s.

Photographing the location as it is today, sans this monument, Onodera utilises new Ricoh StareReap technology to add vibrant 2.5D prints several millimetres thick to the surface of two-metre gelatin silver prints she has processed by hand, in an unusual, one-of-a-kind series that throws into relief the fusion and collision of handmade photo and digital technology. Also on display will be other new and master works offering insight into one side of this artist’s incredibly broad practice.

Associated project of the French May Arts Festival 2023.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Yuki Onodera was born in Tokyo (1962). In 1993, she established a studio in Paris and began to work internationally. Onodera’s experimental work, which does not fit within schemas of “photography,” often poses two questions: what is photography, and what can be done through it? She uses any possible method to realise her works, whether this means taking photographs with a marble inside her camera, or creating a story out of a legend and travelling to the ends of the earth to shoot it.
Onodera is known for making two-metre-high prints in the darkroom, or 8m size of collages, and for other original hands-on methods. Her works are presented in the “Elles@contrepompidou” (2009) an important exhibition at Centre Pompidou from the collection.

She won the prestigious awards Kimura Ihei Prize (2003, Japan) and Niépce Prize (2006, France).

Her work is held in collections of 30 institutions around the world, including those of Centre Georges Pompidou, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Shanghai Art Museum, and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Among other locations, her solo exhibitions have been held at The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2005), Shanghai Art Museum (2006), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2010), The Museum of Photography, Seoul (2010), Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France (2011), Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2015), and Centre de la Photographie de Mougins (2022).