Silvan Binotto
Life in Tokyo

Exhibition:
October 22 to December 4, 2021

Opening:
Thursday, October 21, 2021, 18.30h
Introduction by Stefan Meier, Art Creator

Artist Talk:
Saturday, November 6, 2021, 15.00h

Finissage:
Saturday, December 4, 2021, 13.00-17.00h

Opening Hours:
Thursday 18.00-20.00h
Friday and Saturday 13.00-17.00h
or by appointment


We are shaped by the society into which we are born. It influences our values, our facial expressions, our gestures as well as our sense of aesthetics and creates the world around us. In this sense, architecture and landscape become the stage on which we humans take our role in society. In the series "A Life in Tokyo" I have tried to understand life in the Japanese metropolis better and capture it in the picture; this from the perspective of a stranger, to whom many things seem remarkable that are taken for granted as everyday life for locals.
The series is modeled on Hiroshige's woodcuts, Carl Spitzweg's Pointen pictures, and Canaletto's veduta paintings.
The technical execution involves digital montages, which were stitched together from several photographs. It is not photography in the strict sense, because I was never interested in capturing a moment, but instead episodes from a human life. Therefore, the images have been slightly adjusted and elements that make it difficult to read the depicted scene have been removed. The people portrayed were there at a certain point in time, where they can be found in the pictures. However, the time of the captured episodes varies from a few minutes to several days. The people standing next to each other in my pictures may never have seen each other, but at some point, they entered the same stage. This scenery and its architects are as important to me as what takes place on it: Be it in this series the canyons of Tokyo and their architects, the gardens and gardeners, streets and road builders, etc.. To capture them, I had to break the laws of perspective. The consequence is, among other things, a reduced distortion of the edges of the image and a resulting static, calm effect. The proportions of the architecture remain more even, creating a similarity to a plan drawing.