24-25/ 09/ 2022
Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend
Drift 12
03/ 12/ 2021~ 09/ 01/2022
Solo Exhibition MINORSTEPS
Zaagmolendrift 12, Rotterdam
The exhibition “Minorsteps ” that will be on show, consists of two series of photographs made in the time of Covid. Both of which, as the title suggests, are photographs of minor communities and places and their footprints.
JP in NL
After 18 years of living in the Netherlands, Japanese photographer Shinji Otani started to wonder how much he actually has become Dutch.
He decided to investigate these questions about identity, by portraying others who are in a similar situation. For a year, Otani photographed various Japanese families that live in the Netherlands.
The resulting series “JP in NL” is an intimate portrait of members of a small minority in the Netherlands (There are around 8900 Japanese living in the Netherlands) but also a visual chart for the Photographer himself, to compare and understand his own personal questions about identity.
He decided to investigate these questions about identity, by portraying others who are in a similar situation. For a year, Otani photographed various Japanese families that live in the Netherlands.
The resulting series “JP in NL” is an intimate portrait of members of a small minority in the Netherlands (There are around 8900 Japanese living in the Netherlands) but also a visual chart for the Photographer himself, to compare and understand his own personal questions about identity.
Photo: From the series JP in NL
Tomohiro, 5 years and his family 2021
Project JP in NL is made possible by Mondriaan foundation and Makersloket/ Droom en Daad
01/ 10~ 30/ 10/ 2021
Solo Exhibition
CITY PLANTS
OPENING FRIDAY 1st Oct from 17h
By definition, Photography is a process, making it possible to obtain a lasting image of objects by the action of light on a sensitive surface. Shinji Otani was a ceramist in Japan before he decided to become a photographer. From the volumes to the surfaces toward the volumes within the surface. His visual research focuses on documenting the ambiguous relationships objects have with places, as well as residual information which people and history imprint on the environment.
In the exhibition CITY PLANTS, we invite you to move between figuration and abstraction. The photographic work is extracted from three specific series, 'Backstage', 'Westland', and 'City plants', in relation with the intimacy from the artist, towards his environment, and the environment towards his architecture.
City Plants
Writing with images, following and continuing lignes from an architecture, passing by, to a tree growing outside of its own frame. Spaces that extend to others. Shapes that grow within each other.
Silence sentences to see, framed in infinite spaces. In order to find harmony and balance in conversations, to cultivate strong and delicate interactions, following the mindset of essential principles of Japanese calligraphy.
Backstage
During the lockdown, in the beginning of the covid period, when rules mandated isolation, Shinji, living in an urban landscape, stepped outside his apartment, alone, and found in his isolation, isolated spaces ;
The spaces we don’t go to,
The spaces without reasons,
The spaces we don’t see,
The spaces we don’t even think about,
The forgotten spaces,
Modern caves flattened on transparent surfaces, where writers or painters trace their imprints.
Close to the materiality of a painting, the ‘backstage’ photography series follows the artist’s wandering, between residential areas and highways, where the colors of handmade graphics and careless wild plants shapes themselves into each other.
Westland
Plants grow in silence of the immensity in sanitized temples built by humans to contain a full emptiness. When the lights draw the shadow of the space, Shinji capture a corner of this phenomena. Outside remain quiet, is this real?
The series Westland is made possible by Mondriaan Foundation and PS Camera project.
The camera and enlarger are kindly loaned by Jan Voster
Special thanks to
Wim Wiskerke, Machiel Botman and Koos Breukel
08/ 09~ 12/09/2021
Artfair KUNST RAI 2021
represented by WOW Amsterdam (booth #44)
RAI Amsterdam
Europaplein 24, 1078 GZ Amsterdam
OPENING HOURS
Wednesday 8 September 4 – 9 pm (private opening)
Thursday 9 September noon – 9 pm
Friday 10 September noon – 9 pm
Saturday 11 September 11 am – 6 pm
Sunday 12 September 11 am – 6 pm
more info
KunstRAI http://www.kunstrai.nl/
Europaplein 24, 1078 GZ Amsterdam
OPENING HOURS
Wednesday 8 September 4 – 9 pm (private opening)
Thursday 9 September noon – 9 pm
Friday 10 September noon – 9 pm
Saturday 11 September 11 am – 6 pm
Sunday 12 September 11 am – 6 pm
more info
KunstRAI http://www.kunstrai.nl/
From the Series WESTLAND
Gelatin silver print
Project support by Mondriaan Fonds and PS Camera
Camera loaned by Jan Voster
11/ 06 /2021
Honoured Makerslocket Rotterdam artist grant by stichting droom en daad
13/ 05~ 12/ 06/ 2021
Group exhibition 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ZERO.... TAKE OFF
DE.GROEN FINE ART COLLECTION Arnhem
03/ 04/ 2021
Project granted by CBK Rotterdam
15/ 02/ 2021
Avondklok-Westlandtz
Supported by Mondriaan Fonds and PS camera project
24/ 9/2020
Longlists RABO Photographic portrait prize 2020
14/ 09/ 2020
Project granted by Mondriaan Fund
14/ 05/ 2020
189 strips of my Amsterdam canals panorama images are online at Amsterdam City Archives
26/ 05/ 2019
Opening Photo festival Naarden
25/ 05/ 2019
Book launch “Standbeelden in Nederland” in
Photo festival Naarden. Published by Lecturis
14/ 05/ 2019
Presentation “Oranda Loci” Yoshii district, Ukiha Fukuoka
11/ 12 /2018
Campaign portraiture of Tomoko Mukaiyama “Pianist” in Ginza Maison Hermès
28/ 06/ 2018 ~ 13/ 07 /2018
Group exhibition IMA VISION (IMA Gallery Tokyo)
– Shinji Otani, Riyo Nemeth, Yuji Hamada, Kenji Hirasawa
10/ 05/ 2018
IMA ONLINE interview (Japanese only)
26/ 04/ 2018
Interview about the statue project in Noordhollands Dagblad
26/ 04/ 2018
Presentation/ Interview at De Donkere Kamer #35
23/04/2018
Standbeelden in Nederland special website launched.
11/ 30/ 2017
Interview: Jury of the Grolsch Unseen Residency Award, together with Tristan Lund (art consultant & curator) and Salvatore Vitale (photographer, editor & co-founder of YET Magazine)
16/ 02 ~ 19/ 03/ 2017
Solo exhibition OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE
Opening: 16/ 02 19:00~22:00
Artist Talk: 19/ 03 15:00~
feature in L’Oeil de la Photographie
Review: Trendbeheer.com
10~13/ 11/ 2016
Participating Offprint Paris 2016
Beaux-Arts de Paris (Booth #59 OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE)
29/ 10 ~ 18/ 12/ 2016
Solo exhibition OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine Museum, Fukuoka Japan
Review: Trendbeheer.com
30/ 09/ 2016~23/ 10/2016
OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE solo show in POST Tokyo
Book Preview: OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE
Launched at Unseen Book Market Amsterdam 2016 BUY THIS BOOK
24/ 03/ 2016~
Project OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE started.
Japanese photographer Shinji Otani and Dutch photographer Johan Nieuwenhuize recognise a similar state of mind in each other’s work. They share a large overlap in working methods, but their concepts and fascinations differ a lot. Both lens-based artists walk the city and take their images instinctively and continuously. Both work from their own image archive and combine images made in different cities and from different periods. Otani works from a documentary perspective, Nieuwenhuize deals with his subject in an abstract manner.
The transactive memory theory shows us that people working in duo’s or groups build up a larger collective memory than do two individuals. When two friends walk a city they remember things selectively, subconsciously depending on the other to remember the other things for them. Shinji Otani and Johan Nieuwenhuize investigate the collective memory developing between the two of them, when they photograph the same subject at the same day.
With their project OTANI NIEUWENHUIZE, the artists look into Japanese and Dutch culture and into cultural tourism. Behaving as tourists themselves they photograph places where culture is being “consumed”. In the Netherlands they’ll visit the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and De Efteling. In April 2016 they travel to Japan to visit theme park Huis ten Bosch and the historic site of the former Dutch trading post Dejima in Nagasaki. They will also visit the shrines of Dazaifu Tenman-gū in Dazaifu on Kyushu.
03/2016
Commission work of the Dutch national portrait gallery/ the ministry of foreign affairs of the Netherlands exposed in the Europagebouw of EU2016 in Amsterdam
21/ 09/ 2015~
Metro station Amsterdam central covered with 20m canal panorama picture from the book De Grachten van Amsterdam/ The Canals of Amsterdam.
In collaboration with Foam photography museum Amsterdam and GVB municipal public transport Amsterdam.
