The exhibition Flowing brings together key bodies of work by Japanese photographer Yasuhiro Ogawa from recent years, alongside new works, revealing the inner coherence of his photographic thinking. Ogawa’s color photography operates at the threshold between landscape and abstraction, between perception and dissolution. Color increasingly replaces form without relinquishing compositional control. The world does not disappear; rather, it withdraws from unequivocal legibility.

Invitation to the Vernissage

On Saturday, 14 March 2026, from 6 to 10 pm, we will open the exhibition Yasuhiro Ogawa – Flowing and cordially invite you to the vernissage. The Japanese photographer Yasuhiro Ogawa will be personally present and available for conversation. In addition, Thomas Gust will guide visitors through the exhibition and offer in-depth insights into the work as part of a curator’s tour.

Vernissage: Saturday, 14 March 2026, 6–10 pm
Yasuhiro Ogawa will be present.
Guided tour of the exhibition with gallerist Thomas Gust and Yasuhiro Ogawa
Exhibition curation: Ana Druga and Thomas Gust
Info: Free admission, no registration required

GALERIE BUCHKUNST BERLIN
Address: Oranienburger Str. 27, 10117 Berlin

YASUHIRO OGAWA – FLOWING
Exhibition period: 14 March – 30 May 2026
Opening hours: Thu–Sat, 2–6 pm
Finissage: 30 May 2026, 2–6 pm | Guided tour with gallerist Thomas Gust

Info: Free admission, no registration required
+49 30 218 025 40, info@buchkunst-berlin.de

The photographs by Yasuhiro Ogawa are available in limited editions as high-quality Fine Art Baryta prints. We would be pleased to provide you with personal information about the available works and to advise you in selecting a suitable print. For further information or to arrange an individual consultation, please contact Galerie Buchkunst Berlin by email at info@buchkunst-berlin.de or by telephone at +49 30 21802540.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Winter Train, China, 2025

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Furious Clouds, Japan, 2017

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Into the Silence, Golden Fields, Japan, 2022

Ogawa works within a Japanese photographic tradition in which nature is understood not as a motif but as a condition: a space of time, emptiness, and resistance. His photographs are not representations of landscape but perceptual surfaces upon which light, color, movement, and duration are inscribed. Abstraction here is not a stylistic device but the consequence of an attitude that conceives seeing as a tentative, open process.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Autumn Water, Japan, 2019

“The river never stops flowing, and yet the water is never the same.”
Credo of Yasuhiro Ogawa, freely after Heraclitus.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, To the Sea, Japan, 2023

From travel and movement emerges a narrative of visual fragments that dissolve boundaries between city and countryside, human and nature, history and fiction. Ogawa prefers to travel by train; the window becomes a photographic threshold between interior and exterior, stasis and velocity. The passing landscape loses its stability and becomes surface, becomes color. Blur articulates a temporal condition. In certain series, Ogawa intensifies this experience through the use of prepared, hand-ground lenses, imparting a subtle texture to the images—like a veil drawn across reality.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Into the Silence, Passing Shadow, Japan, 2020

Yasuhiro Ogawa, In the Fog, Taiwan, 2025

A defining characteristic of many of Ogawa’s works is darkness. It is not a dramatic effect but an organizing principle. Especially in winter, his preferred season for travel, images emerge marked by subdued luminosity and reduced chromatic range. Within darkness, colors appear sharpened and intensified, comparable to traditional Japanese interiors in which lacquered surfaces or gold leaf glow most vividly in low light. This aesthetic resonates with a Japanese understanding of space in which concealment is not perceived as uncanny, but as poetic and complete.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Kimono Woman, #6, Japan, 2024

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Rain River, Japan, 2023

In the series Lost in Kyoto, Ogawa’s approach condenses into a photographic- philosophical reflection. Kyoto does not appear as a historical or cultural symbol, but as a fragmentary field—an overlay of nature, architecture, spirituality, and time. Temples, paths, trees in mist, and traces of human presence surface only to dissolve again. Nature becomes a carrier of meaning, pointing toward cyclical time, transience, and repetition.
Central to this work is its reference to Zen Buddhism and the concept of Ku—emptiness. Ku does not signify absence or lack, but an open condition in which all elements are mutually interdependent. The circle, emblematic of this mode of thought, stands not for completion but for continual attempt. Ogawa’s photographs adhere to this principle as well: they do not seek closure, but approximation. Each image is another orbit, a renewed articulation within openness.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Foggy Mountains, Japan, 2016

Yasuhiro Ogawa (born 1968) is regarded as one of the most important contemporary photographers in Japan. His work combines the classical motifs and contemplative stance of Japanese landscape photography with contemporary photographic strategies such as abstraction, unconventional perspectives, and blur. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Taiyo Award and the New Comer Award of the Photographic Society of Japan.

Yasuhiro Ogawa, Lost in Kyoto, Cherry Blossom, Japan, 2016 Cover photo: Yasuhiro Ogawa, On a Windy Day, Japan, 2016

PORTFOLIO: YASUHIRO OGAWA

_ Restaurant & Bar Hummus & Friends www.hummus-and-friends.com

The exhibition can be viewed until 30 May 2026 and may be visited via the partner restaurant Hummus & Friends from Monday to Sunday between 12 pm and 6 pm (excluding special events).

Combine your visit with culinary Israeli specialties or a refreshing drink at Hummus & Friends, while at the same time discovering the photographs by Yasuhiro Ogawa at Galerie Buchkunst Berlin.

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