TAIJI MATSUE
Born in 1963, Lives and works in Tokyo.
Graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1987, with a major in geology.
Won the Higashikawa New Photographer Award in 1996, the Kimura Ihee Photography Award in 2002, the Higashikawa Domestic Photographer Award in 2012, and The 25th Society of Photography Award in 2013.

Recent solo exhibitions include “JP-22” at the Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum (Shizuoka) in 2006 and “Surficial Survey” at the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM (Sizuoka) in 2012. Recent major group exhibitions include “Artist File 2011―NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art” at the National Art Center Tokyo in 2011, “Aomori Earth” at Aomori Museum of Art in 2014, Sapporo International Art Festival 2014, “A Bird’s-eye View of the World” at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in 2015. He also participated a traveling exhibition “ Logical Emotions” in Switzerland, Poland and Germany in 2014-2015.

The theme of a new series, ”LIM” that MATSUE presents in this exhibition, is graveyards around the world.
The cemeteries are the place that reflects the culture and the custom of each location deeply, however, MATSUE has photographed them doing away with subjectivity as much as possible and trying to capture the objects extremely clearly to the details. His attitude to the photography seems to desert the audience who try to reveal the “meanings behind the image” in a cold manner. It can be seen in his tendency avoiding to set any arbitrary objects nor any central motif in his image. His eyes on the graveyard is no difference to his graze at any other landscapes, such as mountains, forests and cities in the various countries.
It is not his subject to imagine the “Life after death” in the scene of cemetery as a house for dead people. MATSUE’s steady eyes do suggest the meaning of his life work gathering the surfaces of the earth around the world, and his style that grope for the ultimate tense relationship between subjectivity and objectivity.

The new photo book “LIM” that has the same title of this show, is now published by SEIGENSHA.

The another essence of this exhibition is the body of Black & White works that was originally taken in 90’s. For this time, MATSUE reprinted them by totally different technique in new size. In his early career, he printed the works with an enlarger for the electron microscope. But this time, due to the digitalizing of the B&W films, he realizes to print in a quite high resolution that has not been feasible.
MATSUE says that what is interesting about the photography is its constant change at all the times in accordance with the evolution of technology. How should we face with new technologies in the digital era? This series that renewrd the 90s works with a new technique is one of his answers to this questions.