Sweet and Bitter: Contemporary "Girl" Photography from Japan

Hiromi Nakamura, curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, discusses the distinctive vision of a new wave of younger female photographers, who reflect the immediacy of Tokyo fashion and street scene. This is an art of, by, and for young women, which mixes high art aspirations with the sensibility of glossy fashion magazines and instant mobile phone snapshots. Focusing particularly on the work of two very different rising star photographers— the glamorous, hyper-colored portraits of Tokyo fashionista Mika Ninagawa, and the poignant, reflective images of everyday Tokyo by suburban mother Mikiko Hara—Nakamura sets their evolving art in the context of social, cultural, and technological change in Japan, underlining the distinctive role and trajectory photographic art has enjoyed in this society.

Followed by a panel discussion with anthropologist Laura Miller, writer and artist Sharon Kinsella, Charlotte Cotton, curator of photography, LACMA, and Yoshitake Mouri, professor at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.

Introduced and moderated by UCLA sociologist Adrian Favell. Works by both photographers will be on view later the same day at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. 

Sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, and the UCLA Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies. For more information, please contact afavell@soc.ucla.edu. 

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE

Public programs are made possible, in part, by major gifts from the Annenberg Foundation, Ann and Jerry Moss, and Mimi and Werner Wolfen. Additional support is provided by Laura Donnelley, Bronya and Andrew Galef, Erika Glazer, an anonymous donor, and the Hammer Programs Committee. Hammer Lectures are supported, in part, by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.