Naoki Ishikawa | Capturing the Map of Light on This Planet

Photographer whose field is the entire world

This is the first large-scale solo exhibition by Naoki Ishikawa, a photographer whose field of study is the entire world. Ishikawa traveled from the North Pole to the South Pole on his own at the tender age of 22, and successfully climbed the Seven Summits (the highest mountain in each continent), at 23. Crisscrossing the globe, he provides us with a new outlook on everyday life and the world through his unique style of photography, which incorporates an anthropological and ethnological perspective.
This exhibition provides a comprehensive picture of Ishikawa’s work, from his early years up to the present day, including his series presenting the extreme environments of the polar regions and eight-thousand meter Himalayan peaks, as well as THE VOID, which showcases the virgin forests of New Zealand; CORONA, in which he navigates the islands of Polynesia as if guided by the stars; NEW DIMENSION, which features cave paintings from all over the world; and ARCHIPELAGO, which explores the islands of Japan from Okinawa in the south to Hokkaido in the north.

A fresh perspective on Earth

Ishikawa has exhibited a persistent fascination with technology and the wisdom for living that has been passed down since ancient times all over the world in natural networks developed over time, which cannot be delimited solely by boundaries such as national borders. His wide-ranging quests on foot and by visual observation can be described as both cultural-anthropological field work and an unending journey in pursuit of ‘art’, a term that derives from the Latin for skill or technique.

Visitors can experience the new world map presented by Ishikawa by walking through the exhibition as if taking a journey around the world, using as guideposts the photos from his expeditions to the Poles and to K2, which is considered one of the world’s most insurmountable peaks. The connections and cultures of the regions, depicted free of geopolitical divisions, provide us an opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on this planet we call home.

Naoki Ishikawa’s room

This room presents the unknown side of Ishikawa’s projects, displaying kits and equipment he carried and used on his expeditions, along with things he acquired on his journeys. It also offers a glimpse of the early years and roots of the photographer Naoki Ishikawa, including precious boyhood photos and photographs from his first solo trip to India when he was in high school. Also featured are items from the hot-air balloon gondola that washed up several years after he ditched it during a failed attempt to cross the Pacific Ocean in 2004.