shashasha

In their 2017 series “Still Life,” Tokyo-based artist System of Culture developed a style that incorporates the compositional traditions and aesthetic rules of classic still-life painting into the medium of photography. Their meticulously executed setups artificially recreate phenomena such as natural light or moments from everyday life such as stepping out of the shower. In their subsequent work, System of Culture has built on this foundation, quoting and drawing inspiration from a variety of other media and genres, to convey sensibilities, textures, situations and concepts of contemporary life that otherwise elude photographic capture. “Book 2” features all of the series produced by System of Culture between 2017 and 2023, as well as commentary by Sayoko Osawa (assistant curator, Yokohama Museum of Art) and Yuzu Murakami (art critic), and an afterword by System of Culture. All texts in Japanese & English.

“System of Culture’s work is characterized by deeply informed references to other genres and art forms and their adaptation into photographic images composed in the still life format. Their photographs combine classical compositions, contemporary subject matter, and intriguing situations staged with extraordinary control of light. Their photographs defy the existing tags and labels used to classify visual information on social media, and it is this profound, sophisticated uniqueness that makes System of Culture such an invaluable artist in contemporary photography.”
— from Yuzu Murakami’s text