Exhibition “STUDY OF AMERICANA 1978”

Exhibition for a new book
“Study of Americana 1978”
[1978 アメリカーナの探求]
@Gallery LE DECO, Shibuya, Tokyo
From August 16th to August 28th, 2022.

Book: STUDY OF AMERICANA 1978

Attractive scenes from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in 1978 have been compiled into a photobook 45 years after the shooting. Nogami, a photographer who was 31 years old at the time of shoot, describes his Study of Americana as “a visual exploration of my American-ness.” Every weekend, he drove his Honda Civic to places not far from his home in Arlington for shooting. An entire area along Route One, from Baltimore in Maryland in the north to Richmond in Virginia in the south, became the location for his photographic series, Study of Americana. What caught Nogami’s eye and attracted his attention was not a special event, rather the charm of mediocrity. It was the cool America-ness of being on the outskirts of a city that has been left behind. He discovered a fascination with the region and captured scenes that showed that they had aged along with the people there?a clothing store, barbershop, and liquor store that quietly operated in the streets of small cities with low-rise buildings; a small movie theater with its art deco architecture; supermarkets, gas stations, and diners that everyone would drive to and drop in on a daily basis; and the signs, billboards and parking meters found on the street.

83 color plates
120 pages, 252 x 279 mm, hardcover

Texts (Japanese and English)
“Real Things from a Dream” by Stuart Munro
“Capturing the Scenes Now from the Future” by Mike Nogami
“Bibliographical Timeline” by Mike Nogami

Published August 15, 2022 by OSIRIS Co., Ltd.

Buy@shashasha 写々者 for international shipping
Buy@Amazon JP

Book: YUDEMEN ゆでめん

The birth of Happy End’s debut album, a historical masterpiece of Japanese music

Mike Nogami’s photobook “Yudemen” is a record of the birth of one of the most important postwar masterpieces in Japanese music – Happy End’s self-titled debut album (often nicknamed “Yudemen”).
Nogami, who became friends with Happy End (and later Yellow Magic Orchestra) member Haruomi Hosono at university, was able to photograph the recording sessions in the spacious Aoi Studio in Tokyo on April 10 and 11, 1970. Presented with captions that point out details and add invaluable context, Nogami’s images follow band members Shigeru Suzuki, Takashi Matsumoto, Eiichi Ohtaki, Haruomi Hosono and the engineers at the studio as they created a kind of sound that had not previously been unknown in Japan. In addition to the studio session, “Yudemen” photo sessions with individual band members (such as Haruomo Hosono at home) and a Happy End gig in front of the Shibuya Seibu building in May 1970. Between chapters, Nogami offers his own perspective of the band’s coming-into-being. The book concludes with an interview with Happy End member Shigeru Suzuki, who also supervised the creation of this book.

All texts included in Japanese and English translation.

164pages, 236 × 247mm, hardcover
Essays(Japanese and English)

Published August 5, 2021 by Music Magazine Inc
ISBN978-4-943959-35-9

Buy@shashasha 写々者 for international shipping

Exhibition “YUDEMEN” ゆでめん

Exhibition for a new book “YUDEMEN”

@Gallery LE DECO, Shibuya, Tokyo

From August 2nd to August 15th, 2021.

Exhibition “ON THE ROAD” 1974 – 1979

“ON THE ROAD” 1974 – 1979
From Los Angeles to New York City
@Popularity Gallery & Studio, Aoyama, Tokyo
March 10th to 22nd, 2020.

Exhibition “SUMMER OF 1965”

@STUDIO 35 MINUTES, Araiyakushiji, Nakano, Tokyo..
From September 11th to 21st, 2019

Mike went to the United States for the first time as an exchange student when he was in the third-year at Rikkyo High School in 1965. It was a month-long trip that took them to Los Angeles, Oklahoma, Chicago, New York, and Hawaii. They stayed in Washington, D.C. for a week. As a high school student who loves cameras, He went through around 10 rolls of Ektachrome color slides (color positive film) during the trip without giving them a second thought. The color photos he took then were surprisingly good and he still like them. Later in 2018, he realized that the person in one of the photos he took in New York was Nico before she joined The Velvet Underground. It looked like she was on location for a movie, so maybe Andy Warhol was nearby.

Book: BLUE Tokyo 1968 – 1972

Hanging out with his fellow Rikkyō University classmate Haruomi Hosono, Mike Nogomi privately photographed the members of ‘Happy End’ and other musicians at their live concerts, studio recordings, and backstage, all of whom would go on to become important figures for the Japanese music scene. Being there by way of his connection with Hosono, Nogami was frequently capturing people yet to enter the spotlight and has preserved this period as a document of extreme value.

187 black and white plates
204 pages, 230 x 240 mm, hardcover
Essays (Japanese and English)
– “Loud Photographs, Quiet Photographs” by Michael K. Bourdaghs
– “Afterword” by Mike Nogami

Published by Osiris Co., Ltd.

OSIRIS
 

Buy@shashasha 写々者 for international shipping

Exhibition “BLUE”

BLUE @ BIOTOP, Shirokanedai, Tokyo and BIOTOP, Osaka.

From May 19th to June 26, 2018.

Exhibition for a new book “BLUE”