Aglaia Konrad
Keijiban Apparatus (Tribute to Photography)
2021
Silkscreen and offset printing on both sides of 100 g/m2 Munken Lynx paper
88.2 x 56 cm
Edition of forty copies numbered and signed by the artist on a certificate and five artist’s proofs
The edition consists of a random selection of printing sheets from the book Japan Works (Roma Publications, 2021). For that reason, the black and white photographs vary in almost each poster. Thank you for your understanding.
In the summer of 2021, Aglaia Konrad released a new book, Japan Works (Roma Publications), which is based on a study trip across central Japan she undertook in September 2019, mainly in search of Metabolist architecture projects. As the publisher states: “Such historical, iconic architectures were also the excuse to explore the unspecific and the non-iconic of their urban setting, with the same intensity. Free associations of full-page photographs alternate with contact sheets that follow the chronology of this last itinerary.”
The edition Keijiban Apparatus (Tribute to Photography) literally derives from this book, since it consists in unbound printing sheets from Japan Works – black and white photographs spread as a shoji-like grid on both sides of the sheets, with all the printer’s marks in the margins. To these sheets, printed in Belgium on an offset press, yellow surfaces were then added in Japan, this time through silkscreen printing. Two thirds of the surface were covered on the front, and the remaining part on the back.
These yellow layers refer to the color-filters commonly used by photographers who work with black and white film. Indeed, the yellow filter translate the different colors into distinct shades of grey, thus increasing the contrast and the depth of images. Konrad has often used this device, covering windows and other surfaces (such as the keijiban itself during her one-month show), as a way of blurring the distinction between architecture and photography, thus transferring the properties of one onto the other.
The multi-layered composition of Keijiban Apparatus (Tribute to Photography) is a perfect example of Konrad’s acute interest in playing with the structural elements of any medium, be it photography, architecture, or the book.
Aglaia Konrad's exhibition took place at Keijiban from September 15 to October 14, 2021. At the same time, her edition was displayed at IACK, in the framework of “Research – Progress – Practice #3 Aglaia Konrad Archives”.