The Shiseido Gallery is pleased to announce that from October 27th (Sat) through December 23rd (Sun), 2012 will host the exhibition Mythologies — Brazilian Contemporary Photography.

The Shiseido Gallery has organized a great many photography exhibitions, even from its earliest days, in part because Shinzo Fukuhara, the Gallery's founder and Shiseido's first president, was himself a photographer. Most recently we have been proud to host a number of such exhibitions bringing new perspectives and values to the expressive mediums of photography and video, including Helsinki School — Internal & External Landscapes (2009); Cao Fei — Live in RMB City (2009); Darkness for Light — Czech Photography Today (2010); RongRong & Inri — Three Begets Ten Thousand Things (2011); and Dayanita Singh — The Adventures of a Photographer (2011). In an age of globalization and increasing cultural homogenization, such exhibitions have taken advantage of the expressive capacities of photography and video to explore the distinct vernaculars of specific cultural traditions and regions.

Brazil is the largest country and the most populated in Latin America. As with the other economically developing BRIC nations (including Russia, India and China) it is today enjoying a period of rapid growth. Brazil's relationship with Japan extends back to the 1895 Treaty of Amity and Commerce, and taking advantage of the long term economic growth and prosperity that took root in the 1950s, numerous Japanese corporations have advanced into Sao Paulo. 1908 also marked the beginning of a major immigration of Japanese to Brazil, and the country now has the world's largest population (about 1.5 million) of residents of Japanese descent.

Brazilian society, having accepted immigrants from all over, has become one of the most racially and culturally diverse nations in the world. It has also seen its share of dynamically changing political upheaval and social change, a multicultural society in which a diversity of races, peoples, beliefs, and cultures all coexist in harmony. All of this has very strongly influenced Brazil's unique culture including music, art, architecture, design, and film, and such aesthetic expressions have been recognized around the world.

This exhibition offers an opportunity to experience Brazilian culture through the photography and video works of six individual artists including Claudia Andujar, Luiz Braga, Rodrigo Braga, João Castilho, Eustáquio Neves, Kenji Ota, and the photography collective Cia de Foto. Mythologies — Brazilian Contemporary Photography is structured around an exploration of the theme of “myth.” These works capture many of the often overlooked “spiritual” artifacts of modern society, and explore the essence of Brazilian culture in ways that offer opportunity to see mythological and allegorical connections that still pervade life and culture in Brazil.

Many of these works offer a documentary quality, casting their view subjectively on Brazilian life, custom, landscape, climate, flora and fauna, and other subjects, but at the same time they also passionately and powerfully express uniqueness of Brazilian views on aesthetics, nature, religion, spirituality, and life and death.

This exhibition offers an excellent opportunity to explore, through the works of contemporary Brazilian photography, the world of “myth” that still lives and breathes in Brazil.