The details for KYOTOGRAPHIE 2025, a spring art event firmly established in Kyoto with support from international brands like Chanel and Dior, have been announced. Launched in 2013 by co-founders and co-directors Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, this 13th edition will feature 13 artists and run for 30 days from April 12 to May 11, 2025. The theme is "HUMANITY," and works by photographers and artists from around the world will be exhibited at over a dozen venues, including the Kyoto Museum of Art Annex, the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art Annex, and the Kyoto Shimbun Building basement (former printing factory), as well as traditional Kyoto townhouses not normally open to the public, such as Ryosokuin, Kondaya Genbei Takein-no-Ma, and Yachikuan (former Kawasaki family residence).



Motherland: The Festive Tableau, 2009 © Pushpamala N.

CHANEL Nexus Hall, a sponsor of the festival since the first edition, is exhibiting three major recent series of works by Indian contemporary artist Pushpamala N. at the Kyoto Museum Annex. Born in 1956, Pushpamala N. has been based in Bangalore since the mid-1990s and is described as "one of the most entertaining artists and mavericks in the contemporary Indian art world" (according to the press release). This highly socially engaged photo-performance project incorporates Iturbide herself into the frame as the subject, and this time the exhibition will include works such as "The Arrival of Vasco da Gama," in which she dresses up as Vasco da Gama, the man who discovered the sea route to India, which marked the beginning of European colonialism's spread to Asian countries.


Dior - Vogue Mexico 2023 © Graciela Iturbide

Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, born in 1942, photographs local communities in Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Argentina, and other South American countries, as well as India. Known for her feminist-themed work, JR's works will be exhibited at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art Annex in collaboration with Dior. JR has received numerous awards, including the Hasselblad International Photography Award, the William Klein Award, and the Mexico City National Prize for Arts and Sciences, and this will be her first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan.


Behind the Scenes: JR, The Chronicles of Kyoto, 2024 © JR

French artist JR will present new works in the basement floor of the Kyoto Shimbun Building (formerly a printing factory), which has been opened to the public as an exhibition space thanks to KYOTOGRAPHIE. "Chronicle" is a participatory mural art project that began in 2017 and has been held in Venice, San Francisco, Miami, Havana, Naples, and other cities. This time, JR and his team have taken photos of 500 people while staying in Kyoto, creating a collage of these portraits. JR's project will also be exhibited on the wall of the north corridor of the JR Kyoto Station building.


© Adam Rouhana

Yachikuan (Former Kawasaki Family Residence), which will serve as the exhibition's satellite office, is hosting an exhibition by Palestinian-American artist and photographer Adam Rouhana, born in Boston in 1991 and based in Jerusalem and London. "He questions his own position as a Westerner raised in America, as an Arab, and as a Palestinian wielding a camera" (from the press release).


© Mao Ishikawa

Along with Yachikuan (Former Kawasaki Family Residence), Kondaya Genbei Takein-no-Ma is a popular venue for the event, allowing visitors to tour Kyoto's traditional townhouses. In collaboration with SIGMA, Mao Ishikawa, a photographer based in Okinawa, will exhibit her work. Her latest works will be featured, along with her early series "Red Flowers," which depicts people in a bar exclusively frequented by black soldiers in the late 1970s. Ishikawa, whose solo exhibition was also held at Tokyo Opera City Gallery last year, was born in Ogimi Village, Okinawa Prefecture, in 1953. In 2011, he won the Sagamihara Photography Award for "FENCES, OKINAWA," and in 2019 the Photographic Society of Japan Artist Award, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art Encouragement Prize in 2024, and the 43rd Domon Ken Prize.


Series: "Fine Kimono," Okayama, 2018 © Keijiro Kai

At the Kurochiku Banzai Building, nearby, an exhibition will feature works by Keijiro Kai, who mingles with crowds at combative festivals around the world, "wielding his camera around" (his own words).


© Eric Poitevin

Another popular subtemple of Kenninji Temple, Ryosokuin, which is known for its Japanese garden, is hosting an exhibition of works by Eric Poitevin, "a leading artist in the world of contemporary French photography" (same release), sponsored by Van Cleef & Arpels.


Being There_52-V1, 2024, The Anonymous Project © Lee Shulman & Omar Victor Diop

KYOTOGRAPHIE has always featured video works as well as photographs, and this year's edition will be no exception, showcasing entertaining video works. "Being There," a new work by London-born, Paris-based video maker Lee Shulman, who works on advertising and music videos, and Senegalese photographer   Omar Victor Diop, will be on display at Shimadai Gallery. Lee is the director of the Anonymous Project, a non-profit organization that archives amateur vintage photography, which was launched in 2017. Omar, who was born in Senegal in 1980 and has produced portraits of himself dressed as historical figures, will collaborate on this performance piece, in which Omar appears in anonymous photographs of America from the 1950s and 1960s, a time when racial discrimination still lingered.


Chichén Itzá, Mexico, 2002 © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

Martin Parr, the British photographer for whom Lee has directed a film, is affiliated with Magnum Photos and is known for his awards such as the Sony World Photography Award Lifetime Achievement Award (2017), the Erich Salomon Prize (2006), and the Baume & Mercier Prize (2008). This time, the theme will be "mass tourism," which has become a social problem around the world, particularly in Kyoto today, and works shot around the world, as well as works shot in Kyoto specifically for this event, will be exhibited on a mobile exhibition truck (location to be announced at a later date).


feminist, 2021, Abidjan © Laetitia Ky

The festival regularly hosts an artist residency, where participants stay in Kyoto to create new works. This time, new works by Ivorian artist Laetitia Ky will be exhibited at ASPHODEL in Gion, Demachi Masugata Shopping Arcade, and DELTA/KYOTOGRAPHIE Permanent Space. The self-portrait, which uses her own hair as an object, embodies her identity as an activist.


©︎ Tamaki Yoshida* This image represents work in progress

Tamaki Yoshida, winner of this year's "Ruinart Japan Award 2024" at the festival, will visit France this autumn to take part in an artist residency program at Ruinart, the world's oldest champagne house. While there, she will observe a hunting expedition and present a work that explores the inequality in the relationship between humans and nature. The exhibition's scenography (spatial design) will be done by Sou Fujimoto, who also handled the architectural design of the recently completed Nicolas Ruinart Pavilion in Reims, France, where Ruinart is headquartered (the location has yet to be announced).


K-15 (Irish series), 2018 © Eamonn Doyle

The work being exhibited with support from the Irish government is by Eamonn Doyle, a Dublin-based artist and head of the indie music label D1. The venue will be a mixture of photography, metaphor, and sound (venue yet to be announced).


My Parents–Cape Paradise © Liu Hsing-Yu

Hsing-Yu Liu, winner of the KG+ SELECT Award 2024 at KG+, a satellite event aimed at nurturing young artists, will exhibit a photographic installation on the theme of gender, using his own parents as models. The exhibition will be held at Gallery Sogata.

Tickets will go on sale in late February 2025. Passport tickets are priced at 6,000 yen for adults (5,500 yen in advance), 3,000 yen for students (same price as in advance), and single-venue tickets are expected to cost between 600 and 1,500 yen. Some venues are also planned to be free.






Inquiries:
KYOTOGRAPHIE Office
672-1 Kuon-inmae-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto City
Tel. 075-708-7108