LONDON.- Michael Hoppen Gallery announced the gallery’s inaugural participation at Independent 20th Century, New York, with a solo presentation of Ishiuchi Miyako (b. Gunma, Japan, 1947), a pivotal figure in international contemporary photography. Our booth will spotlight Suidobashi, a rarely seen early body of work that marks the emergence of Ishiuchi’s radical and deeply personal photographic language.

Ishiuchi’s practice is profoundly rooted in personal and collective memory, noted for grainy, raw, and emotionally charged black and white images. Early work by the artist prefigured contemporary interest in subjective documentary and autobiographical narratives, a thread that runs through much of today’s photographic and lens-based art.

Having been awarded the Ihei Kimura award in 1978, Ishiuchi was chosen to create a record of the Tokyo Dental College in the Suidobashi district of Tokyo. The series was published in 1981 and acclaimed for its homage to the history and spirit of the institution. Our presentation presents vintage silver gelatin prints, each made by Ishiuchi in the late 70s. As a group, they have rarely been exhibited and are presented here for the first time outside of Japan.

Presented alongside Suidobashi, the presentation will be accompanied by selected work from Yokosuka Story (1976–77) and Apartment (1977–78). These pivotal chapters in Ishiuchi’s life carved out a new terrain of expression that merged the psychological, political, and autobiographical into images both visceral and tender.

To accompany this exhibition, a dedicated cloth bound hard cover book in an edition of only 125 copies will be published by guiding light, with a foreword by Yasufumi Nakamori. This limited edition book is now available as an advanced order online and will be released in September at the independent.