IZIMA KAORU: Erin O'Connor wears Vivienne Westwood

17 February - 31 March 2007 

f a projects is pleased to announce the exhibition of the first series of works by the renowned Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru to be shot in the UK with a British model. Taken on location in Kew Gardens, Erin O’Connor Wears Vivienne Westwood is a series of photographs which realises O’Connor’s own fantasy of a perfect death. Kaoru’s ongoing project, ‘landscapes with a corpse’ is internationally recognised as one of the defining oeuvres of Japanese photography of the last 20 years. As with Araki, violence and the female figure lie at the heart of Kaoru’s work, but uniquely for him each series is conceived as a collaboration between the artist and his subject. The models develop with Kaoru their own fantasy of a perfect death. Landscapes with a Corpse began as a project in fashion photography, but has become Kaoru’s singular and ongoing obsession. The images in each series are structured in a filmic progression from close up to long shot, which, for Kaoru, echoes the journey the soul takes as it leaves the body. The works represent the compelling and disquietening conjunction of beauty and mortality. This series was commissioned in collaboration with the Doll, and will be launched on the first day of London Fashion Week at On|Off at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, from 12 – 15 February. It will then be on show at the London gallery. Izima Kaoru has exhibited extensively internationally since beginning the series Landscapes with a Corpse in 1993. Solo exhibitions include gallery shows in New York, Paris, Cologne, Munich, and Verona. In 2006 his work was included in the exhibitions Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin, Die Kunst zweier Städte, at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Der Contract des Photographen, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Excess, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham and Six Feet Under, Kunstmuseum Bern