Kentaro Kumon “Smoke and Steam”

LAG is pleased to announce the exhibition of Kentaro Kumon’s photographs “Smoke and Steam” from Friday, June 27, 2025, to Saturday, July 19, 2025.
 
The OLYMPUS PEN FT, which he inherited from his father when he was a freshman in college, was nothing like what he wanted. It was just a worn-out old camera, even its mirror needed a bond to attach it. Until then, he had never taken a picture, but once his father taught him how to use the camera and release the shutter, the scene in front of him was captured clearly in the photograph, even with such a camera.
 
This exhibition, “Smoke and Steam” will display and sell a carefully selected collection of the vast number of photographs taken with that camera over a year in 2023. The compositions and the contents of the exhibition will be a big difference from the same title exhibition, which was opened at Roll at Iidabashi in 2024. Twenty-five years have passed since the day he first released the shutter. This work was taken with the camera, which inspired him to pursue a career as a professional photographer, maybe the trail that led him and his photography to the future through the team-up with his only father and his only camera.
 
Along with this exhibition, we will release a photo book of the same title, and its first edition already has only a few left in stock. The artist’s talk will also take place during the exhibition, so please look forward to it.

Guest Curator : Yosuke Fujiki （Yosuke Fujiki Van Gogh Co., Ltd.）

—Artist Statement—

I’m using today, my father’s camera often didn’t do as I wanted. The images would be out of focus or too grainy, or the film would tear altogether. But the photos it gave me made me wander back and forth through my memories, perhaps because I often thought of my father and our old house during that year.

Excerpt from: “Kemuri to Suijyoki – Smoke and Steam” Kentaro Kumon (Photo Collection)