Opening Saturday, October 18, Wako Works of Art is very pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Shizuka Yokomizo. Born in 1966 in Tokyo, Yokomizo currently lives and works in London. After completing her studies in Philosophy at Chuo University, Yokomizo majored in Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths College, and has been working with video and photography since. She has exhibited in solo shows in London, New York, and in various parts of Europe, and has been included in international shows such as the Venice Biennial and the ICP Triennial of Photography and Video in New York. This will be her sixth solo exhibition at Wako Works of Art.

This new body of work, entitled all, is comprised of photographs made in collaboration with female prostitutes working in London. The subjects in this series have all been photographed by Yokomizo from the perspective of their clients, in their own rooms or during outcall. With what there is of the light coming in from the window or outside their doors, their bodies are illuminated dimly and situated in their actual working conditions. These figures are detached from the garishly lit, graphically flattened bodies found in advertisement and other forms of mass media. The women in Yokomizo’s photographs defy the objectification and sexualization by the camera, but instead their actual being and trade are at the heart of the matter, suggesting a reading that lies beneath her female nudes. On some of these photographs are actual mark-makings, kissed or touched by the models, that take the works to a realm beyond the visible layer of her images.

Shizuka Yokomizo will also take part in a group exhibition, On Your Body, at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography opening on October 18, 2008. Works from the same series will be on exhibit, as well as Forever (and again), a highly acclaimed video work that was included in the show Clandestines at the Venice Biennale in 2003.

Please join us for a reception for the artist on Saturday, October 18, from 6 to 8 PM.

» Press Release(PDF)