ZEN FOTO GALLERY

We are pleased to announce that Zen Foto Gallery and Muge Gallery will be co-publishing a new edition of “Ash” by Chinese photographer Muge in September, 2019.

Since Zen Foto Gallery was opened in 2009, the third exhibition we presented was Muge "Go Home". A series documented the drastically changing landscapes in Muge's hometown Chongqing due to the Three Gorges water conservancy project. In 2013, we had the second exhibition "Ash" with Muge, an artist portfolio book under the same title was published in a limited edition and soon sold out. The new edition of "Ash" is a compilation of the series, a solo exhibition will take place in late November, six years after his last presentation at the gallery in 2013.

Pre-order at a special price JPY 5,273 is now available until September 30, 2019.
Limited special edition with a platinumn print by Muge will be also available (details to be announced).

■ Pre-order ■
Available at the gallery or placed online on Shashasha

《塵》在這裡指灰燼：「生命輪迴，從哪裡來就會回到哪裡去，靈歸賜靈的神」。

新版的《塵》收錄木格 2010 年至近年的同系列新作。全書涵蓋「靜物 Still Life」、「山水 Shan Shui」和「風物 Scenery」三部分作品，呈現該系列中所探討的日常與自然空間中的萬物光景、陰翳之間的瞬息萬變，在時間的流裡亦靜亦動，隨之風化、腐朽抑或老去、生長。階梯式的裝幀，將具意象的一株松樹以樹幹為芯貫穿全書。隨時間的推移，影像因堆疊而生成。印刷工藝方面則採用黑、灰雙色調，並以光油、霧油和特色光油細膩呈現木格鏡下的各種物象。

「當我用大畫幅相機重新去認識現在的家鄉，發現現實世界裡一切都歸於我們內心慾望：總是嚮往自然，破壞自然，然後又修復自然因果輪迴（...）這些影像是我個人生活的時間帶來的認識，還有自然在時間和歷史下的痕跡，以及現實世界對人類自我走向的思考。」— 木格


“Ash” refers to the ashes of death: “In the cycle of life, one goes back to where one came from, all souls return to their creator.”

The new edition of “Ash” consists of new works from the same series that were photographed from 2010 until the recent years. Divided into three parts - “Still Life”, “Shan Shui” and “Scenery”, the series portrays still and moving objects in daily and natural spaces and their transient changes - weathering, decaying, aging and growing. Symbolized by the pine tree on the cover of the book - a tree trunk connects all parts of the book together, and the photographs stacked on top of each other are bound together into the book like a staircase. The book is printed in duotones with black and gray and each photograph is printed with glossy varnish, matte varnish or special color varnish, depending on the delicate state of each object photographed by Muge.

When I used the large format camera to re-understand my hometown as it is now, I’ve discovered that all things in the real world derive from our internal desire: the Karma cycle of yearning for nature, destroying nature, and mending nature (...) These images are taken from the understandings gleaned from my daily life, conveying the traces of time and history in nature, and a person’s thoughts of the future when faced with reality. — Muge

■ 藝術家介紹 Artist Profile ■

木格，1979 年出生於重慶，現居住在成都。木格堂創辦人。曾獲2013年度美國PDN攝影界新聞雜誌年度攝影師獎、日本IMA攝影雜誌評選最值得關注的70-80代攝影師等。

自 2005 年起，木格開始《回家》拍攝計畫，記錄因三峽水利工程而產生巨大動盪的返鄉風景。面對中國社會環境的劇變所帶來的矛盾和無力感，木格嘗試改變拍攝手法和觀看方式，換以大畫幅技術性相機，從居家日常的周遭靜物開始，衍生到自然環境中的各種物象觀察。自 2010 年起著手拍攝的《塵》系列，便是透過自然界中最不易變化的物質 — 山、水、石，觀看時間和歷史所留下的痕跡，還原自然的本真。

近期則有新作《沿牆而行》，藉以長城遺址圖像為符號線索，走訪北方鄉村，途經傳統意義上在長城界限內外的中國，自 2013 年起持續六年，行走 128,658 公里，試圖定義當下「家」的中國。透過藝術家對自身的反思，他長期所關注的「家」，從個體居身的環境，逐漸擴大至容納整個中國的「大家」。2019 年，由木格策劃，聯合攝影師馮立、張克純展開「洄流」中國計畫，以身體力行之舉，洄游中國大小城市，結合實地創作、展覽和出版呈現當下中國。

木格的作品刊登、評論發表於眾多出版物：《紐約時報》、《華爾街日報》、法國《Le Monde》、《中國攝影》等。作品展示活躍於海內外，像是個展「沿牆而行」（Format 國際攝影節，英國德比，2019年）、「中國當代攝影四十年」（深圳 OACT 當代藝術中心，2018年、北京三影堂摄影藝術中心，2017年）、「浮世相－中國當代攝影展」（德國波恩當代藝術館，2015年）、「龍的崛起：當代中國攝影展」（紐約 Katonah 藝術博物館，2012年）等，皆可看到他的作品。主要出版物有《塵》（禪攝影藝廊，2013年初版、2019年新版）、《回家》（假雜誌，2014年）。

Born in Chongqing in 1979, Muge currently lives in Chengdu, China. Founder of Muge Gallery. He received the Photographer of the Year Award from American photography magazine PND in 2013, and was selected as one of the most notable photographers born in the 1970s and 1980s by IMA Magazine, Japan.

Since 2005, Muge started his “Go Home” project to document the drastically changing landscapes on the way back to his hometown in Chongqing due to the Three Gorges water conservancy project. Facing the contradictions and hopelessness brought about by the tremendous changes in China’s social environment, Muge rethought his way of photographing and viewing and eventually started using a large-format technical camera to observe the still life at home and various things in nature. In his “Ash” series which began in 2010, Muge focused on three unchanging elements – mountain, water, and stone – through observing the traces of time and history, he attempted to comprehend the true essence of nature.

Muge’s recent project “Behind the Wall” recorded his journeys around China from 2013 to 2018, traveling 128,658 kilometers along the boundary of the Great Wall and visited the villages in the north as he photographed the sites of the Great Wall and the people he encountered. The aim was to create a portrait of his home nation through its symbolic icon, attempting to develop a deeper understanding of China, his “home at large”. The concept of “home” which Muge has been continuously concerned with has expanded beyond his hometown. Beginning in 2019, Muge started a new project called “Bow Wave (Huí Liú)” along with photographers Feng Li and Zhang Kechun. They are traveling to bigger and smaller cities in China to present the current state of China through fieldwork, exhibitions and publications.

Muge’s photographs were featured in The New York Times; Le Monde magazine and Photography of China. His works have been exhibited in and out of China, including his solo exhibition “Behind the Wall” at Format Photo Festival in 2019; “40 Years of Chinese Contemporary Photography” at OACT Contemporary Art Terminal Shenzhen in 2018 and Three Shadows Photography Art Centre Beijing in 2017; “Chinese Contemporary Photography Exhibition” at Kunstraum Villa Friede in Germany in 2015; “The Rising of Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography Exhibition” at Katonah Museum of New York in 2012. His main publications are “Ash” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2013 for the first edition, 2019 for the new edition. Japan) and “Going Home” (Jiazazhi, 2014. China).

木格《塵》新版 Muge “Ash” New Edition

Pre-order at speical price JPY 5,273 is now available on Shashasha

H273×W194 / W207 / W217mm｜132 pages｜570g｜PUR open back, softcover with folded cover｜Editing & Art Direction Amanda Ling-Ning Lo｜Printer Tokyo Inshokan Printing Co., LTD｜Published in September 2019｜820 copies plus 30 copies of limited special edition with a platinumn print (details to be announced)｜Retail price JPY5,800