Editor’s Pick
“A gallery situated a little way from downtown San Francisco, Book and Job presents a solo exhibition of black and white silver gelatin photographs by Oakland-based artist Asako Shimazaki. Displayed for the first time as a complete series, these works were made in the late 1980s as Shimazaki traveled back and forth from America to Japan. She had recently moved to San Francisco to attend SFAI, where she studied with local legend Henry Wessel.
In this series titled ‘Ayu no Kaze,’ Shimazaki reflects on the changing of seasons in Japan, the title pulled from an ancient sailor’s phrase from Japan’s oldest book of poetry, meaning “the wind of promise.” Asako seamlessly pairs images of snow-laden rooftops, a misty window’s curtain swept just so slightly, with uncanny, summery scenes. A splattering of plastic, cartoonish birds in a fenced-off front yard lined with train tracks to nowhere sit across from an image of giraffes gazing this way and that. Peering through fences, foggy windows, cascading leaves, and holes in a mountainous sky, familiar landscapes become fantastical, rendered from the artist’s incantatory perspective. Asako reminds us “no matter the changes in our lives and culture, ‘Ayu no Kaze’ returns every year. It speaks to [us] of eternity.” Seasonably well-timed, this series questions what changing incoming tides have to offer as some of us (me) begrudgingly saunter from summer to fall.”
-Janie Perez-Radler
About the Exhibition
Found in Japan’s oldest book of poetry, Ayu no Kaze is a sailor’s phrase meaning “the wind of promise.” After relocating to the US, Shimazaki returned to Japan time and again to visit her native land. Alone through mild sun and fierce blizzards, her images are an exploration of a place left behind. A diary of yearning and serenity, Shimazaki’s gaze poetically alludes to life transitions that are at once privately intimate and deeply universal.
Asako Shimazaki was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1984, Shimazaki moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and in 1991 completed her BFA in photography at SFAI. Shimazaki exhibits her work in both the United States and Japan, and is represented in the permanent collection at SFMOMA.