WAITINGROOM (Tokyo) is pleased to welcome Paris-based Yuki Onodera as guest artist to present “Parcours – Between pneumatic post and homing pigeon -,” her first solo exhibition with the gallery, from November 2 (Sat) to December 8 (Sun), 2024. This exhibition is a part of Art Week Tokyo 2024.
Inspired by the gallery’s location on the site of a former post office, Onodera’s new works are based on the themes of communication and the transmission of information, connecting the city of Paris where she lives to this gallery in Tokyo. These works were created in such a way that different spaces and time frames (past and present) overlap, with communication systems as the starting point. The exhibition will feature approximately 40 works on a wide variety of postal themes, ranging from large vertical prints over two meters in length to small, postcard-sized prints with stamps and postmarks, all connected by a single red line from the front of the gallery to a space further in the back.

“Do pigeons fly on a full-scale map?”, 2024, acrylic on gelatin silver print、730 x 790 mm

Born in Tokyo, Yuki Onodera has maintained a studio in Paris since 1993, and continues to exhibit widely around the world.
While photography is her main medium, Onodera is an extremely conceptual artist who freely overcomes subjects and approaches considered to be taboo, such as putting marbles in her camera. She creates narrative worldviews based on various incidents and legends, while her unconventional and unique ideas have led her to create many original series of works. Onodera’s works, which include silver halide photographs measuring over two meters that she burned by herself and the application of oil paint to black-and-white photographs, are so marked with the traces of her hand that they undermine the concept of photography itself as a mechanical medium. Her experimental works created using all manner of approaches question the very nature of photography itself.
Her works are in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Shanghai Art Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, and many other museums around the world. Major solo exhibitions have been held at the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2005), Shanghai Art Museum (2006), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2010), The Museum of Photography, Seoul (2010), and the Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France (2011).

The gallery WAITINGROOM occupies a site that used to be a post office (the former Bunkyo Suido Post Office), from which these new works emerged. Above the entrance is a sign that reads “Post Office.” With a past like this, the venue was an entrance leading towards an imaginary fiction. The reality of this fact inspired me to jump into action, and I came up with the idea for a series of photographic works in which I would travel through time and space in Paris, the city where I live, with “postal” as the keyword.

Some of you may be familiar with the postal service based on pneumatic tubes that operated in Paris from 1868 to 1984. La poste pneumatique, a high-tech communication system of its time, was a physical mail network that ran through the ground beneath Paris, conceived to take some pressure off the electric telegraph system that had become overloaded. A letter written on paper is brought to the post office and handed to a postal worker, who would place it in a cylindrical capsule and throw it into a tube that would open up next to him. When the capsule descends underground, the pressure and vacuum forces it to run toward its destination at a breakneck speed of one kilometer per minute. Under our own feet, just beneath us, was this network of steel tubes. In other words, handwritten messages were physically flying around beneath the ground at all times, in this machine-like city.
Come to think of it, the purpose of life, without even waiting for DNA, is to transmit information and communicate, along with all of human activity since time immemorial.

The process of creating these works began with mapping.
I obtained a map of the network of former pneumatic postal stations and compared it to a present-day map of Paris. After tediously copying the lines connecting each base station, I created this chimera-like map of closed lines. These lines were part of a 37-kilometer long parcours (circuit) that would form the basis for these new works. The fantasy did not end with this underground pneumatic postal system, however. It also extended to communication itself. Shifting my gaze from the underground to the sky, the figure of the carrier pigeon appeared. My question was, do these pigeons fly with a life-sized map?

Left: Pneumatic post (La post pneumatique) Network
Right: A labyrinth of metal pipes installed underground in Paris

This time, I created a parcours of my own design and took photographs as I moved along it. I did not take tourist photos of Paris that deviate from this circuit. Neither did I want to make a realistic documentary of this act, however. Instead of taking pictures of one street or another, I used the scenery that revealed itself when I stood somewhere along the parcours as a kind of springboard. Sometimes, as in a novel, I found myself desiring transcendence so badly that the viewpoint of the subject suddenly became that of a bird, or an intricately entangled underground tube.

This is why none of these works are straight photographs.
For example, in the darkroom, I would cut up the silver halide prints that I had made myself, and create a montage of multiple photographs by collaging them on a canvas. In the darkroom, I also used the photogram technique to burn an image of another dimension onto a print of a landscape. I attempted to make a papier collé (type of collage) using Baryta prints, and obtained two years’ worth of the French scientific magazine La Nature from 1936 to 1938. These magazines, which filled one entire cardboard box, were crammed full of the high-tech information of the time. I cut out and collaged research papers, articles, advertisements, and other pages that I thought were interesting. It was a high-tech trip that took one back 88 years from the present. I added some surface texture in oil paint, as if to confirm the existence of these articles. Relief-like textures appeared on these photos. These “secondhand clothes” themselves, which were said to plasticize memory, were glued on top of the silver halide prints.

The first thing you see in the gallery is a parcours circuit painted with red lines and a collage of bird’s-eye view photos that resemble “pigeon photography.” The next work consists of photos of roadblocks, but it is the sky to which access is blocked. Of course, the sky is for the birds, not drones. There are two long and wide (250cm) vertical works, taken with particular attention paid to the top and bottom. These were taken at rue des Panoramas and rue Lhomond. The name “Panoramas” may recall Louis Daguerre, who was a panorama painter. Eugene Atget also took exactly the same photographs at this location in 1907 and 1913. In these prints, I applied a photogram to the ground to evoke an underground network, and a collage to the sky to trace the trajectory of a pigeon’s flight.

In Paris, there are two places where the metro comes out of the underground and runs in midair (on elevated lines). I photographed the northern part (Boulevard de la Chapelle), which was built in 1900. By creating a montage of multiple photographs, the viewpoint shifts and the stable perspective collapses, revealing gaps in the image. The network of steel on the ground, with its strong presence that is neither underground nor in the sky, begins to waver.

In addition, about 30 small-sized silver halide prints will be on display. These photos were printed, sent out through the mail, and then returned to the artist. They are stamped and postmarked.

A red line has been drawn on the wall of the exhibition space to invite visitors to the space at the back. This line is meant to indicate another, suggested circuit. Following this line leads the visitor to a pigeon in flight on the last wall, and unpublished images from the “Birds” series created in 1994. Was I able to transplant even a small part of the parcours that originated from the underground postal network that used to exist in Paris, to this space formerly occupied by the Bunkyo Suido Post Office? It would be my pleasure to take you on a short trip to experience this tiny portion of space-time in Paris.

Yuki Onodera, Sept 12th, 2024

Left: Pigeon with camera / pigeon photographer
Right: From Yuki Onodera’s Esquisse

Text by Yuzu Murakami (assistant professor of visual arts, Akita University of Art)
When Félix Nadar took the world’s first aerial photographs from a balloon in 1858, Parisians saw the city from above for the first time, thanks to photography. Today, at a time when aerial photography technology has become commonplace, it is difficult to really imagine the wonder and excitement felt by the people of Paris at the time. This decline in imagination is due in part to the fact that, alongside the development of flying technology, the camera has always served as an extension of the human eye, while people have always had a strong yearning to “see” beyond their own bodies.

In 1907, German Julius Neubronner invented the “pigeon camera” as an aerial photography technique. A camera with a timer was affixed to a lightweight aluminum harness that was then attached to a pigeon, which was allowed to fly around. Even today, cameras are attached to birds, marine creatures, and land animals to capture moving images for the purpose of studying animal life.

Looking back on the history of photography, the main field for this form of artistic expression was literally on the ground. In Japan, straight snapshots on the street have become a popular form of photographic expression, establishing themselves as legitimate. Even within this context, however, Yuki Onodera’s practice has carved out its own niche. The works in “Parcours: Between Airmail and Carrier Pigeons” are not straight, even if their field is the street. Their objective is not to wander the streets on foot in search of encounters with their subjects. Neither do they seek to articulate a sense of the photographer’s body in any way. Onodera’s work is akin to a roller coaster ride: it guides and manipulates the gaze and consciousness of viewers as they float up into the sky before plummeting down to the depths of the Earth.

Speaking of roller coasters, seeing as how this gallery used to be a post office, I wanted to imagine what it would be like to experience the pneumatic postal system, one of the key elements of this work, not as a receiver or sender of such mail, but as a piece of mail itself. This is an experience that gives me an inexplicable sense of excitement while reaffirming the existence of my own body amid the violence of being swept away, which is also what I have experienced when viewing Onodera’s previous works.

The photograms on the photographs of urban scenery presented in this exhibition usher the consciousness of the viewer into an underground space that is actually invisible to the eye. A photogram is a method of producing images with shadows by intentionally creating areas on the photographic paper that are not illuminated during the exposure of a silver halide print. The fact that this method of “not illuminating” causes the invisible pneumatic postal circuit hidden underground to appear on the image is something that bears a relationship to the nature of that underground network.

These works also incorporate an element of time travel, with unpublished images from Onodera’s own past work, and collages from the French scientific magazine La Nature. Unlike animals, which move around in a limited field, such as the sky, layers of earth, or the sea, or other photographers who keep close to the ground in pursuit of the social conditions of the same era, Onodera seems to avoid being too grounded in a specific technique, style, or sense of contemporaneity.

Onodera herself often used to point out that her early body of work in particular was “all imbued with a sense of floating or levitation.” According to her, “the fact that my subjects are suspended in midair is probably a reflection of my own attitude toward nomadic living. Being unstable is preferable and natural for me,” and this sense of suspension can also be observed in these works.[1] However, Onodera’s sense of floating is not something that can be described as soft or airy. Rather, it is the same kind of chilling, suspended feeling that one gets when riding a roller coaster, and all of one’s organs seem to become exposed.

Through her creations, Onodera seems to be trying to fulfill the longing that humans have had for “seeing” beyond their own bodies since the beginning of the history of photography in a completely unique way. This series of work might be described in terms of experiencing an expansion of one’s ability to see, with an insatiable appetite for that seeing, unconstrained not only by the human body, but also by time and space. Rather than achieving a complete and unobstructed view of the world, these works seduce the viewer by inflicting an intentional kind of damage on that image, and then compensating for it with imagination.

[1] Kazuyoshi Usui, Naruki Oshima, Yuki Onodera, Ken Kitano, Risaku Suzuki, Miki Nitadori, Yuji Hamada, Photography? End? 7 Visions and 7 Photographic Experiences, Magic Hour Edition, 2022, p.143

Solo Exhibition “La clairvoyance du hasard” 2022, installation view Centre de la Photographie de Mougins, France

Born in Tokyo in 1962
Currently lives and works in Paris, France.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
Here, No Baloon, Wamono Art, Hong Kong

2022
Here, No Baloon, RICHO Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
La clairvoyance du hasard, Centre de la Photographie de Mougins, France

2020
Burning with Desire, ICICLE SPACE , Shanghai, China
Everywhere Photographs, Zeit-Foto Kunitachi, Tokyo, Japan
FROM Where, THE GINZA SPACE, Tokyo, Japan
TO Where, Yumiko Chiba Associates, Tokyo, Japan

2018
Yuki Onodera Photo Exhibition, Kyoto Museum of Photography, Kyoto, Japan
The Bird Escaped from Camera Where to Go?, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China
The Window as Device, KIDO Press, Tokyo, Japan

2017
IMPROMPTUS, Pierre-Yves Caër Gallery, Paris, France

2015
Muybridge’s Twist, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
Décalages, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France

2014
housand mirrors in the forest, Maison d’Art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
VIEW FROM THE WINDOW, Beaugeste Gallery, Shanghai, China
The Sanctuary of the Topsy Turvy, 2902 Gallery, Singapore

2013
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie Louis Gendre, Paris, France

2012
The Exhibition of Yuki Onodera’s New Works: The World is not small—1826, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China

2011
Gravity-defying photography, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA

2010
INTOTHELABYRINTHOFPHOTOGRAPHY, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, The Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea
Private room, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan

2009
Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, KIDO Press, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie RX, Paris, France

2008
12 speed, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Beijing Keumsan Gallery, Beijing, China
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Centre d’art Nei Liicht, Dudelange, Luxembourg

2007
L’été Photographique de Lectoure 2007, Centre de Photographie de Lectoure, France
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Keumsan Gallery, Heyri Art Valley, Seoul, Korea
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Gallery K, Seoul, Korea

2006
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Images du pôle, Orléans, France
Prix Niépce 2006, Quinzaine Photographique Nantaise, Médiathèque, Nantes, France
BELOW ORPHEUS, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf, Germany
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie RX, Paris, France
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Chambre avec Vues, Paris, France

2005
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Van Zoetendaal collections, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie RX, Paris, France
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan

2004
Roma – Roma, Galerie il tempo, Tokyo, Japan
Watch your joint!, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, quicksilver, Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, Berlin, Germany
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Culturesfrance (Ministère des Affaires Etrangères), Paris, France
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie RX, Paris, France

2003
Transvest, C-Square, Nagoya, Japan

2002
How to make a pearl, Look out the window, Galerie RX, Paris, France
P.N.I., C.V.N.I., Espace Laurence Dreyfus, Paris, France
transvest, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
the Bee the Mirror, Galerie il tempo, Tokyo, Japan

2001
How to make a pearl, ZOO, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
Look out the window, Galerie il tempo, Tokyo, Japan

2000
P.N.I., C.V.N.I., Galerie du Théâtre Granit , Belfort, France

1999
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, The Museum of Modern Art , Gunma, Japan
P.N.I., Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
C.V.N.I., Galerie il tempo, Tokyo, Japan

1998
Yuki ONODERA et Son Mouvement , Galerie il tempo, Tokyo, Japan

1997
Yuki Onodera Solo Exhibition, Galerie Laage-Salomon , Paris, France
Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, Galerie du Théâtre Granit , Belfort, France

1996
Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, Université Lumière Lyon ll, Lyon, France

1995
Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, l’Institut Français de la Mode, Paris, France
DOWN / Birds, Aki-Ex Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
DOWN / Portrait of Second-hand Clothes, Galleria Chimera, Tokyo, Japan
DOWN / Liquid and Glass, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan

1993
White and Sphere, Gallery Hosomi, Tokyo, Japan

Group Exhibition “Focus” 2024, installation view Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Hawaii, USA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
I’m so Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, Rencontre d’Arles, France
Collection of Madeleine Millot Durrenberger-Japan week, Alliance Française, Strasbourg, France
Vanguard Onwards, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, China
Collection 078: World of Still life Painting, Art Gallery-Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo, Japan
Focus, Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Hawaii, USA

2023
The Light, the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Arts, Shizuoka, Japan
Genealogy of Peep Media and the Gaze, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Noir & Blanc: une esthétique de la photographie, Bibliothèque Nationale François-Mitterrand, Paris, France

2022
Time Tunnel,  Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, Israel
Collection II, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Japan
Photography? End?, Post,Tokyo / Media Shop, Kyoto, Japan

2021
70th Anniversary of Photographic Society of Japan: Japanese Contemporary photography 1985-2015, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2021 A Space Odyssey: Monolith_Memory as Virus-Beyond the New Dark Age, Gyre Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Photographic Distance, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Japan
Photograph of Photograph and Photographs,” Yumiko Chiba Associates, Tokyo, Japan

2020
Love Your Neighbours from the Terada Collection-069, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Pictures from Another wall- The collection of Huis Marseille, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, Netherlands
SAGACHO Exhibit Space 1983-2000, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan

2019
Fashion in Images, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Japan
NMAO collection with Alberto Giacometti II, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
L’Antichambre, Centre GeorgeV Art Center, Beijing, China
The Objects’ Shadow- Sensory Spaces, Artisan Lofts Gallery, New York, USA
Genealogy of Pop Art, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan
Contemporary Art II, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan

2018
Come Back! Retour à la Photo, Galerie de l’Etrave- Espace d’art Contemporain, Thonon-les-Bains, France
Paris c’est Elles, La Boîte 31 de Marie-Ange Guilleminot, Paris, France
Tan /110th Anniversary : Memorial Exhibition, Art Gallery of Takashimaya, Tokyo, Japan
The Myriad Forms of Visual Art :196 Works with 19 Themes, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
A beautiful moment / Japanese Photography, Huis Marseille Museum for photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Incognito: Eye in Search, Japan Creative Centre, Singapore

2017
From the Terada collection 058 Black &White : Colours, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Re: Collection II, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan
Forms of Light /Scenes of Light, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
Inframince, The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan
Communication and Solitude, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Rodin, Muybridge and Yuki Onodera, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan

2016
Ecce Homo : The Human Images in Contemporary Art, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Fashion for Children, Iwami Art Museum, Shimane, Kobe Fashion Museum, Hyogo and Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, Japan
Eyes of Six Women, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
The Expert eye / Contemporary Photography, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France
Le Bal / Hommage à Etsuro Ishihara, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan
The Collector’s Eye, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain (MAMCS), Strasbourg, France
Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA

2015
The Younger Generation: Contemporary Japanese Photography, J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
La lucidité des utopies, Chateau de Lunéville, Lorraine, France
Impact of Photograhy : collection of Higashikawa, Asahikawa Museum of Art, Hokkaido, Japan
40th Anniversary of the Kimura Ihei Award, Kawasaki City Museum, Japan
Photographer’s eyes /Printmaker’s eyes, Six anthologies, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan
Between Ceramics and Light, Takashimaya X Gallery, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoko, Yokohama, Japan
Dessin, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan

2014
Dancing Light, Huis Marseille Museum for photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Feel in Blank, Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai, Chaina
Elles Allument, Art Course/ Galerie Associative, Strasbourg, France
Silent Light, Takashimaya X Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Photographs by Five, Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo, Japan

2013
The Aesthetics of Photography – Five Elements, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
At the Window: The Photographer’s View, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA
Vignettes : Between Light & Dark, 2902 Gallery, Singapore

2012
View Point, Huis Marseille Museum for photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The 35th Anniversary / the Allure of the Collection, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Hundred Flowers profuse blooming / Scenes of the Women, Yokosuka Museum of Art, Yokosuka, Japon
La ferme des animaux, Galerie Fraçoise Paviot, Paris, France

2011
l’apparition, la Gare Saint Sauveur de Lille, Lille, France
Jamais le même fleuve, Maison d’art Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Higashikawa International Photo Festival, Culture Center, Higashikawa,Hokkaido, Japan
The child within un / from the collection, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan

2010
8th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Beyond the body, MoCA Shanghai, Shanghai, China
Photography Now, The Museum of Modern Art , Gunma, Japan
Collection of National Museum of Art,Osaka, Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai, Miyakonojo City Museum of Art, Miyazaki, Japan
Rétrospective du Prix Niépce, Mois de la Photo, Musée du Monparnasse, Paris, France
SO ZO, The Museum of Bonkamura , Tokyo, Japan
Semaine du Japon, Musée de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, France
Beyond the Boder, Tangram Art Center, Shanghai, China
35th Anniversary of the Kimura Ihei Award, Kawasaki City Museum, Japan
So+Zo Movement, Bunkamura The Museum of Bonkamura , Tokyo, Japan

2009
Elles@centrepompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Paysges de la Conscience, International Photography Biennale, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia
Ce qui est à voir est ce que vous voyez, Rencontres d’Arles 2009, Arles, France
Indizien, Galerie baer I raum f aktuelle kunst, Dresden, Germany
Never Late Than Better, Elizabeth Foundation, New York, USA
Warm up, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China
The Photograph’s Enticements to the Brush, Ofoto Gallery, Shanghai, China
Japan meets China , Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan
Face à Faces, The State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloníki, Greek
Booth 67f, Van Zoetendaal collections, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Be Quiet, M50 Creative Space, Shanghai, China
Incheon Art Platform Opening Exhibition, Incheon Art Platform, Incheon, Korea

2008
Collection 3/ Aspects of Portrait, National Museum of Art , Osaka, Japan
Verticals, an Zoetendaal collections, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Face à Faces, organized by Culturesfrance, la Silom Galleria, Bangkok, Thailand
7 Views Toward the World, Gallery Touchart, Heyri Art Valley, Korea
The history of arts and cities-Paris, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai , Sendai Mediatheque, Miyagi, Japan
Indefinite Beauty, White Factory, Shanghai, China
Chasseurs de beauté, Gallery 21, Tokyo, Japan

2007
Die Liebe zum Licht, Museum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Paris du Monde Entier, Artistes étrangers à Paris 1900-2005/ Collection de Centre Pompidou, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
Figures of Thinking, Chicago Cultural Center ,Chicago, Illinois, USA
Photographie: Détrônera la Peinture, Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France
Japan Caught by Camera, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Convection, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China
7ème Biennale d’art contemporain, Issy-les-Molineaux, France
Face à Faces, organized by Culturesfrance, Akureyri Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland
Fascination, Takashimaya X Gallery, Tokyo
Japanese Contemporary Art Festival, Heyri Art Valley, Korea
Winter, Galerie RX, Paris, France

2006
Les Peintres de la Vie Moderne, Cente Pompidou, Paris, France
Seeing the Light, Carl Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Figures of Thinking, McDonough Museum of Art ,Youngstown, OH, USA
Face à Faces, organized by Culturesfrance, Fotografins Hus, Stockholm, Sweden
Taille Humaine, Sénat et Orangerie su Luxembourg, Paris, France
Quintessence, l’Ecole des Beaux-Art de Nîme, Nîme, France
Die Liebe zum Licht, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst, Germany
Collection four, The Museum of Modern Art , Gunma, Japan
Out of Ordinary / Extraordinary, Centre de la Imagen, Mexico

2005
Life Actually, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Out of Ordinary / Extraordinary, Sala de arte y cultura de Caja Canaria de la Laguna, Canaria, Spain / Centre Culturel “Les Chiroux”
Institut Lambert Lombart, Liège, Belgium / The Japan Cultural Institute in Rome, Italy / Museum fuer Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin
Face à Faces, rganized by Culturesfrance, Artcurial, Paris
the photography beyond 20 years from Tsukuba Museum of photography 1985 , Sendai Mediatheque, Japan
The Children’s hour, Museum of New Art, Pontiac, Michigan, USA
How Photography Changed People’s Viewpoint, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo
36 Photographers of the Kimura Ihei Award 1975 – 2005 , Kawasaki City Museum, Japan
Figures of Thinking: Convergences in Contemporary Cultures, Richard E.Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, USA
Quintessence, Galerie RX, Parid, France

2004
Roppongi Crossing -New Visions in Japanese Contemorary Art 2004, Mori Art Museum , Tokyo, Japan
Mask of Japan, Guangtong Museum of Art, Guanzhou , China
Out of Ordinary / Extraordinary, The Japan Cultural Institute in Cologne, Germany / Casa Asia Headquaters, Barcelona, Spain
beyond paradise, Galerie Hengevoss-Duerkop, Hambourg , Germany
Apparently Light / European Image Weeks, Galerie Nei Licht, Dudelange, Luxembourg
No Body’s Fool No Body’s Hurt, Aura Gallery, Shanghai, China

2003
Ihei KIMURA Prize, Minolta photo space, Tokyo and Osaka, Japan
Aura, Galerie RX, Paris, France
Mon Paris, Galerie 21, Tokyo, Japan
The New Cosmos of Photography, Kaigandori Gallery CASO, Osaka, Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan

2002
Illusion, Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden / Museet for Fotokunst, Brandts klaedefabrik, Odense, Denmark/ The County Museum of Jonkoping, Jonkoping , Sweden/ Midlanda Konsthall, Timra, Sweden/ Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Arendal, Norway/The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland
Photography in Japanese Contemporary Art, Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Lettonie
Paroles de Fringue, Bourgoin-Jallieu Museum, France
l’Inauguration de la Galerie RX, Galerie RX, Paris, France
The Built and the Living /European Image Weeks, Galerie Nei Licht, Dudelange, Luxembourg
Prize of Photographic Society of Japan , Fuji Photo Salon, Tokyo, Japan
The New Cosmos of Photography 10th Anniversary , The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan

2001
Illusion, Culture Center, Stockholm, Sweden
Higashikawa Photo Fiesta , Culture Center, Higashikawa,Hokkaido, Japan
Contemporary Photography II, Nikon Salon, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Off Triennale-Zeit-Foto , Ryunichi Kantonn Kaikan, Yokohama, Japan

2000
Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Japan, Hallescher Kunstverein, Halle, Germany
An Incomplete History , University Art Gallery University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA
Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Japan, Museum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Contemporary Photograpers of Japan, Shanghai Sanya Photograph Gallery, Shanghai, China
Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Japan, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
Mois de l’Image, Centre d’Art s Plastiques Albert Chanot, Clamart, France

1999
Internationale Fototage Herten , Herten, Germany
Zeitgenössische Fotokunst aus Japan, NBK ( Neüer Berliner Kunstverein ) , Berlin. Germany
An Incomplete History, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, Texas, USA
About Leaving Home, Centre d’art Contemporain, Saint-Priést, France

1998
Between Water, Air and Earth, Galerie Vrais Rêves, Lyon, France
Photobiennale’98 , Art Media Center-TV Gallery, Moscow
Medialogue – Photography in Japanese Contemporary Art ’98 , The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
21st Anniversary Zeit-Foto , Artspace Shimoda, Tokyo, Japan
Jeux de genres:from recently collection of Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain Paris, Espace Electra, Paris, France
An Incomplete History Women Photographers from Japan, 1864-1997, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, USA
Le donné, le fictif , Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, France
Narrative Art from the Collection, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan

1997
Floating Images of Women in Art History , Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan
The 2nd Tokyo International Photo-Biennale / Nomination Section, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan

1996
6ème Festival International de la Photographie de Mode, Centre Bellevue, Biarritz, France
Sosie, Sagacho Exhibit Space, Tokyo
Premier Salon des Artistes Naturalistes, Le Mois de la Photo, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
21st Kodak Prize of Critical Photography, Galerie Passage de Retz, Paris, France
Oiseaux, Galerie Pierre Brullé, Paris, France

1993
Avant-Garde Photographers of Japan, Space for Cultures Seihin, Taipei, Taiwan

1992
The 1st New Cosmos of Photography, P-3 Art and Environment Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Solo Exhibition “IMPROMPTUS” 2017, installation view Pierre-Yves Caër Gallery, Paris, France

Public Collections
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris
Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain, Paris
Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,California, U.S.A.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) of Salem, Massachusetts, USA.
La ville de Dudelange / Centre d’art Nei Liicht, Dudelange. Luxembourg
ondation Daniel et Florence Guerlain, France
Fondation Daniel et Florence Guerlain, France
Shanghai Art Museum
Three Shadows photography Art centre, Beijing
The Museum of Photography, Seoul
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography), Tokyo
The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Utsunomiya, Japan
The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan
Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
Japan Foundation
Kawasaki City Museum, Japan
Kuwazawa Design School, Tokyo
Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, Tokyo
Higashikawa, Hokkaido, Japan
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery
Cultural Foundation, Japan
The Amana Collection, Japan