For its 7th edition, Kyotographie, the youth photo festival that invades Kyoto imperial each spring, has united the East and the West, emphasizing everywhere in the city the portrait in black and white the beautiful Ryuichi Sakamoto, made in New York in 1989 by Albert Watson, the Scot of New York. This pioneer in contemporary music, celebrated with the group Yellow Magic Orchestra to his personal projects (the oscar of the best film music for The Last Emperor by Bernardo Bertolucci, music for the film The Revenant Alejandro Iñárritu in 2015), is as handsome as a picture.

The musician Ryuichi Sakamoto by the great Albert Watson. Albert Watson

Yesterday, when he defied its fury juvenile the insolent David Bowie, his enemy and the obscure object of his desire, in the film Furyo de Nagisa Ōshima 1983. Even today, when he is pacing up and down, mane, silver, and grace of a dancer, the retrospective Lee Ufan: Dwell time at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, for which he created a sound piece in agreement with the minimalist art of the Korean master. It perfectly embodies Vibe the theme chosen for this Kyotographie 2019.

“Each year, we ask ourselves the question ‘What happened important in the world this year and more specifically in Japan?’ We wanted to ‘read the air’, capturing the invisible, to highlight the good and bad vibrations that connect us all, identify this atmosphere and put the pictures in a country that remains one of the not-said, of self-control and reserve,” explain in chorus the “light designer” Yusuke Nakanishi and the photographer Lucille Reyboz, the founding in 2013 of Kyotographie in response to the Fukushima disaster.

Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, the founders of Kyotographie, by photographer Spanish, Isabel Muñoz. Isabel Munoz

State of play, state of mind, that this is to bring in sweetness. Where the shock of a show like Ibasyo -Self-Injury / Proof of Existence the young japanese photographer, Kosuke Okahara, on the self-injury of young girls, often victims of incest and family violence. Their stories follow each other in a maze oppressive in the form of impasses existential at the Horikawa Oike Gallery.

Japan, point to these two optimistic, civilian forms, but forcenés in their determination, will enter a new era. His name, “ Reiwa ” has been announced Monday, April 1, it consists of two ideograms that can be understood as “harmony” and “peace”, or even more prosaically as “harmony” and “order”.

The new imperial era will begin on 1 may when the accession of the emperor Naruhito following the abdication of his father, Akihito. Will therefore close the era “Heisei” (it lasted from Sunday 8 January 1989 at Tuesday, April 30, 2019), the meaning of which oscillates between “stability”, “achievement of peace” and “the characteristic of being flat”, according to the interpretations of more or less positive.

The surreal world of the Polish artist, Weronicka Gesicka. Takeshi Asano

“Fukushima has made us achieve in 2011 how we were isolated from each other, how much we need to be united to establish a future”, insist these two pioneers that are going to year-round fishing for talent, from Poland to Cuba, the rencontres d’arles Festival, Lianzhou in China. Their festival lives today 7th edition a few light-years of the first in 2013, restricted, modest and devout as a community of artists. “Our photo festival was born out of this desire for rebirth and breaststroke purpose all categories, from fashion photography to documentary photography, of the big names of the photo to those who hatch”.

First photo for Benjamin Millepied, the “Sea and Pus (Concrete Block)” of Teppei Kaneuji, or “Splash Factory” in the former printing factory of the Kyoto Shimbun Teppei Kaneuji

As the young Polish Weronicka Gesicka to the tremendous work of reconstruction of the image, in the wake disturbing and awesome of exquisite Corpses surrealist ( What a Wonderful World , scenography, cinema and show of the fifties, families a little bit monstrous and sofa clean at Shimadai Gallery Kyoto). Like this S. F (Splash-Factory) of the young Teppei Kaneuji, who transformed the former printing plant of Kyoto Shimbun , a site of happenings wacky where the paint gushes out of the walls, where the mechanisms plastics seem to live their digital life, colorful, and repetitive.

It is fun to use, without complex, full of desires, excitement and discoveries. It is in the inheritance of the two swiss artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, in their installation video now historic tinkering fool, The Way Things Go , 1987, where the movement of inanimate things no longer stops.

Because he was born of two artists for artists, Kyotographie wants to reveal the lesser known facets of the stars. The lost paradise of the modern man and the Isle of Skye mossy and basalt on the north-west coast of Scotland, according to Albert Watson, whose business has not eroded the sense of mischief ( Albert Watson / Wild , at the Museum of Kyoto Annex). Twenty years of photographic practice, almost in hiding for the choreographer and dancer Benjamin Millepied, who, world first, surprised by his boldness, and his reading ghostly body, and his persistence in the gesture is unexpected, unusual, and unknown ( Benjamin Millepied / Freedom-in-the-Dark , beautifully hung by the duo of François Cheval and Audrey Hoareau in the round tower of Kondaya Genbei Kurogura, a place which takes the name of its master of obis, Genbei-san, tenth generation of the legendary manufacturers of kimonos).

Cuba Si! Cuba No! Behind the famous portrait of Che Guevara by Alberto Korda, all the pictures on the castroist revolution are jostled by three generations of photographers in cuba. Takeshi Asano

It comes out of the clichés, the most common for example on Cuba and his picture before, during, and after the castroist Revolution, thanks to three generations of photographers: Alberto Korda / About Her… , or how the portrait painter of the Che, born in 1928, took advantage of his practice of the photo mode after a ban on its trade by the revolutionaries become censors; René Peña / About Me …, artist of body language, born in 1957, witness to a generation full of utopia and vast disappointments; Alejandro González / about Them… , the benjamin born in 1974 who looks at all those – individuals, kinds, facts, and places – obliterated by the official history (on three floors twilight and yet full of energy to Gion).

The mystery of the body by Benjamin Millepied. Benjamin Millepied/Kyotographie

In this path of travbight that zigzags through the history of the photo contemporary, the first target is the public, that is to say, the public at large. If he demonstrates the work infinitely poetic and almost intangible to the tunisian artist Ismail Bahri, it is in the kitchens of prestigious of the Nijo-jo Castle in Kyoto. This castle was built in 1603 to be the residence of the first shogun of the Edo period (1603-1867), Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616). His clan ruled the archipelago for more than 260 years.

Wishing to protect themselves against traitors, the shogun Ieyasu did ask a prosecutor said “nightingale” in the corridors: anyone who sets foot on this soil immediately, a sound similar to the chirping of a bird and so may not be surprised by intruders or assassins potential, to the image of the legendary ninja. Tourists, who are moving barefoot may check it out again today.

haikus, poems short to celebrate the evanescence of things

The entire site of Nijo-jo – castle, moat and gardens – is inscribed in the world heritage of the Unesco since 1994. Nothing can be touched! Leaves to temporarily replace the 24 panels traditional sliding by blind panels of wood where the artist and his curator Mouna Mekouar to enter a shaft of light, a little wind, a breath infinitely delicate drawing of the sculptures on the beach with just a blade of grass, that turns a drop of water on her arm while the Sword of Damocles. This exercise at least can only reach a japanese audience for which the haikus, japanese poems extremely short to say, and celebrate the evanescence of things, are not mere references to alien.

the 100 years of The Bauhaus celebrated with the work of abstraction from nature by Alfred Ehrhardt (1901-1984) in the wonderful temple of Ryosokuin. Takeshi Asano

the talent of this duo franco japanese is to be able to convince an imperial city, the heritage and conservative, but also extremely sharp and “high-tech” as evidenced by the presence of the headquarters of Nintendo, the merits of art and its freedom. The censorship seems to have more effect than censorship. As well, note -they simply, the exhibition Coastal Grounds of the photographer from Tokyo, and Arles, Tadashi Ono, who showed last year the madness of men building at a gold price of km of concrete walls in the north-east of Japan between the archipelago and the sea, “has been widely quoted in the foreign press, has not been referred to in the japanese press”.

engravings too erotic to be exposed to

This year, the limits are tested with the incredible collection of ‘shunga’, these erotic engravings that lovers know how to decipher beyond the obvious and its disproportions anatomical, the color of the kimono that says the season is the posture of the lovers who reveals the nature of their conditions. Antique shop-Tokyo, the collector, Mitsuru Uragami speaks with a frank passion and erudition mad: it started 18 years ago by the manga (1000 volumes) before diving into this continent unacknowledged (over 2000 parts) that only dared to show the British Museum in London (prohibited at least 18 years of age, such as photographs, however, quasi-abstract of Pierre Sernet, boldly presented by Chanel Nexus Hall in the Kondaya Genbei Chikuin-no-Ma).

“S. F. (Splash-Factory)” by Teppei Kaneuji, in the former printing factory of the Kyoto Shimbun. Takeshi Asano

in The aftermath of the opening night became a ritual, with a bucket of sake to break suddenly, a collective of mallet and speech of the mayor of Kyoto, our ambassador to Japan also distinguished a figure in the city, Tetsuya Ozaki, journalist, art publisher, academic, and strong support, from the first hour, Kyotographie. Its superb traditional house, all wood and in closed rooms include a library to dream of the East and the West. She greeted many of the guests of the festival emerging photographer’s Finnish-american Arno Rafael Minkkinen to Emma Bouvier, the widow of Nicolas Bouvier, the swiss author of The use of the world (1963) and Chronicle of japan (1975), and Kate Barry, who revealed the portraits tender of his own where Benjamin Millepied is discovered today. It is at the Villa Kujoyama, her neighbor, that Lawrence Pic with the insignia of knight in the order of Arts and Letters at Tetsuya Ozaki, in front of an audience of franco-japanese emeritus (Pascal Beausse, head of photographic collections at the centre national des Arts plastiques in Paris, and curator of the exhibition Kenryou Gu, the winner of KG+ Award 2018).

“Lovers of the arts, Tetsuya Ozaki founded in 2003, a magazine of contemporary art bilingual ART-iT (English-japanese), which covers the events in the field of performing arts, japanese and Asia pacific, to give a better visibility to contemporary creation in this part of the world. Role of great communicator that he will also act as executive producer of the Arts section of the scene of the Triennale in Aichi in 2013 and which will permit to introduce from, the work of many French artists of the performing arts and visual arts in Japan. The exposure it offers as a commissioner in the context of Nuit Blanche Kyoto 2017 , and called Mitate and Imagination – a Tribute to Sen no Rikyu and Marcel Duchamp , is a striking example, with the invitation extended to 6 major japanese artists and 2 artists in france, to present an installation on how the art stimulates the imagination”, stressed the ambassador of France in Japan, faithful to the festival.

Deliveryman bento and photographer of the old-age, japanese-brazilian artist Vik Muniz is the colors of the French house Ruinart. Takeshi Asano

Kyotographie was able, in his own way, fertilize this franco-japanese, for our diplomats to patrons (Chanel, Ruinart, Zadig & Voltaire, BMW…). His program brings a shine to the star system with the Brazilian Vik Muniz (his wonderful documentary Waste Land was nominated for an Oscar as best documentary film in 2011), whose facilities giant created on the floor of the workshop become suddenly much smaller pictures of trees and vines of grapevines ( Shared Roots , which is very well presented by Ruinart at Asphodel).

To boost their young festival, Yusuke Nakanishi and Lucille Reyboz have even created their own festival off, KG+ (70 expos parallel to the official program which consists of 11, this year) with the Japanese francophone Sae Shimai and the French Kyoto Philippe Bergonzo. After an edition 2018 is a little disappointing, they have developed a system of scholarships to 200. 000 yen (about 1,800 euros) for the 12 finalists out of the 150 candidates, or enough to power catalogues and exhibitions and to awaken a true enthusiasm.

a Lot of emotions in this off that has chosen to reward the young Atsushi Fukushima, delivery bento (lunch boxing to the japanese) and portraitist tearing apart the old, the most solitary, the most confined, the living space extends much of its layer ( Box Lunch is Ready). He says plainly, “almost all of (its) subjects are dead” for this series full of tact, compassion and fierce truth.

Atsushi Fukushima, when the driver of the bento becomes the portraitist of the last moments of life. Atsushi Fukushima

Everything is not so terrible, but all is not reassuring, however. A lot of fans, as well, for work marital delirious with Chika and Ichio Usui, unfortunately served by a scenography pop-invasive ( Communities bound together by a common destiny , in an old abandoned schoolhouse worthy of all the thrillers): madame is buried in the family garden, sir photographs the legs or the nose out of this!

Games marriage to the japanese: Chika and Ichio Usui, very noticed in the off of Kyotographie KG +. ichio usui

● KYOTOGRAPHIE, until may 12, 2019 to Kyoto, Kansaï, Japan. Detailed program on www.kyotographie.jp