A photo exhibition by photographer Ikko Narahara will be held at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, from November 18th to March 1st.

Narahara is one of the leading postwar photographers, having won the Japan Photo Critics Association Newcomer Award for his 1958 solo exhibition "Kingdom." He subsequently traveled to Europe for a time, winning numerous photography awards for "Europe: Standstill Time," a collection of works taken during his stay.

This exhibition will feature all 87 prints from his 1958 series "Kingdom." These prints feature a monastery in Hokkaido and a women's prison in Wakayama. The series explores the lives of people living under extreme conditions, and the title is taken from Albert Camus' novella "The Exile and the Kingdom." A passage from the novel, "In the center, Yona had written one barely legible word in tiny letters. But I didn't know whether to read it as Solitaire (loneliness) or Solidaire (solidarity)," was quoted when the work was unveiled.

This exhibition faithfully recreates the structure of the photo book "Kingdom - The Garden of Silence, Within the Walls," published in 1978. This will be the first time the entire series has been shown in Tokyo in 56 years, and it is likely to be one of the few opportunities to see Narahara's masterpiece up close.


【Event Information】
Narahara Ikko: Kingdom
Venue: Gallery 4, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Address: 3-1 Kitanomaru Park, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Dates: November 18th to March 1st
Hours: 10:00 to 17:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays)
Closed: Mondays (open November 24th and January 12th), November 25th, December 28th to January 1st, January 13th
Admission Fee: Adults 430 yen, University students 130 yen (free for high school students and younger and those 65 and older)