浅井愼平

Shimpei Asai

The writer Natsume Sōseki once attempted to formulate literature as an equation in his own literary theory. As I recall it, the formula was F + f = P.
F represents the written world, f the emotions evoked by it, and P what we call expression—that is, literature itself. It seems to me that this simple equation applies equally to photography. In other words, it is only when f is generated, and not merely through the existence of F as an object, that a work can truly be called a work.

For this book, I attempted to orchestrate an absurd sequence of photographs and the collision—or, at times, the harmony—of images.
This process of arranging and layering photographs in montage was profoundly creative. Selecting and extracting scenes, objects, and people from the world before my eyes, enclosing them within the camera, fixing them onto film, and then transferring them onto paper has always been a crucial factor in my photographic expression. Through this project, I came to recognize that fact anew.

This concept may trace its origins back to the “incident” in New York in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp named a urinal Fountain and “transferred” it into the realm of art. In my own way, I secretly hoped for a revival of the avant-garde.

And my avant-garde is about a new spirit and a free mind.