Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to present “The Yamamotos”, an exhibition of works by Masaki Yamamoto from February 17th to March 18th, 2023. This is our second solo presentation of his works, since his previous exhibition 4 years ago.

Yamamoto’s previous book “Guts” was published by Zen Foto in 2017. The bold, candid and unashamed photographs he took of his family inside the small one room apartment from 2014 to 2017 were well received overseas and featured by many media outlets. The book was shortlisted for the 2018 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award and was sold out shortly after. While we have been all eagerly waiting for a sequel, Yamamoto finally came back with more photos of his family taken after they have moved to a detached house in 2017. Strangely, the photos look as if the Yamamoto family is still living in the old apartment, as the Yamamoto family will always be the same no matter where they are — full of love, surprises and adventure — and Yamamoto’s downright documentation continue to intrigue us.

The exhibition will present 36 black and white photographs selected from his latest photobook “The Yamamotos”, soon to be published by Zen Foto in February 2023.

“... As I was working towards the publication of this photobook, I showed them the photos and they told me, “It looks just like the apartment we were in before we moved!” “What’s so good about these messy photos!”
Now my mother grows herbs in the garden, we each have our own rooms, and there is a washlet bidet in the bathroom. It was our dream to have a spacious and beautiful house and, as my sister said, it was a relief. But the photographs look no different from the photos taken in our previous old and battered apartment, I think because the Yamamoto family behaves in its own way, just as a living creature would behave largely the same even after entering a new habitat.
Different worlds are hidden inside each of the houses that we pass by, and the Yamamotos are in one of these hidden corners. While my previous work Guts was a reaffirmation of the habits and lifestyle of my own family, The Yamamotos is my examination of the family in a new setting, after moving to a detached house. I hope that The Yamamotos will enable people to see the family in a new way, and to reconsider their views on their own family.”
— Masaki Yamamoto

Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan in 1989, Yamamoto graduated from the Japan Institute of Photography and Film in 2012. He received the annual Jun Miki Award at the Nikon Salon Juna 21 Exhibition in 2015 and the Editor’s Photo Award of Zooms Japan in 2016. In the same year, Yamamoto took part in the group exhibition “Three and Eight” at Zen Foto Gallery and published an accordion-fold poster for the exhibition with the gallery. In 2017, he had his solo exhibition at Mind’s Eye — Adrian Bondy Gallery, Paris and his first photobook “GUTS” was published with Zen Foto Gallery. Yamamoto’s works are collected by Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris in 2017, and the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts in 2017, 2021 and 2022. In 2022, he participated in “Inside Out”, a group exhibition of 15 Japanese and Israeli photographers at the TEO Center for Culture, Art and Content, Herzliya.