Event
Dates:7.21 Fri. – 8.6 Fri, 2023
Hours: 11:00 ~ 19:00
Closed: Open Everyday
Admission: free
Venue
AMMON KYOTO
http://www.ammon.co.jp/
Access: 87, Nakajima-cho, Sanjo-dori Kawara-machi Higashiiru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8004, Japan
Tel: 075-366-4400
Introduction
AMMON KYOTO is pleased to present “SCHOOLGIRL COMPLEX A to Z” an exhibition by photographer Yuki Aoyama, starting on Friday 13th July 2023.
The “schoolgirl complex” series of works by Yuki Aoyama, which began in 2006, won the Canon New Cosmos of Photography Excellence Award (selected by Fumio Nanjo) in 2007, and was published in 2010 as a best-selling photo book have sold more than total of 100,000 copies. In 2013, “Schoolgirl Complex – Broadcasting Club Arc” (starring Aoi Morikawa and Mugi Kadowaki), a movie based on his work, was released. Aoyama, who spent his agonizing high school years not being able to talk to girls in his class at all, has gained wide support for the works he has created based on his adolescent fantasies about women.
This exhibition, Aoyama’s first large-scale solo show in the Kansai region, will focus on his attempt to exhibit all 500 works included in “SCHOOLGIRL COMPLEX A to Z,” a photo book compiling the entire “schoolgirl complex” of 15 years (A to Z) published in 2021, as well as new works photographed since then. The exhibition will also include new works taken since the book was published.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The “schoolgirl complex” is a work that packages various fantasies and fetishes born from staring at the symbolic existence of schoolgirls,
The “schoolgirl complex” is a work that packages various fantasies and fetishism born from staring at the symbolic existence of schoolgirls as a faint longing. Even though they wear uniforms, there are traces of their individuality, such as their transparent shirts, socks, legs stretching out from their checked skirts, the backs of their knees, moles, scabs, etc. When I was an adolescent, I had strong fantasies and desires for these things. At the same time, I had a strong fear (complex) of women because I had not yet had any experience with women.
By expressing and symbolizing such complex emotions, fantasies, and desires in a thoroughly refined form, I hope to express the fragility and danger of adolescence from multiple perspectives
