Noguchi Rika: The Sun
May 2 – June 20, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday May 2, 6-8pm

D’Amelio Terras is proud to present Noguchi Rika’s critically acclaimed photographic series The Sun, on view for the first time in New York. This series, begun in 2005, depicts 18 images recorded by shooting directly into the sun using the most primitive type of lens-less device for capturing images: the pinhole camera.

The subjects of Noguchi’s mysterious and oft-described “spiritual” photographs have included hikers on Mount Fuji, a rocket-launch center in southern Japan, and the depths of the Ocean. She does not manipulate her images, neither through darkroom nor digital effects. Here, in The Sun, we see an earth-based exploration of the closest celestial body in proximity to the earth and our most familiar star. Solar flares burst from behind commonplace subjects, landscapes and urban architectures. The otherworldliness of the soft-focused glow suggests an unknown that exists within the possibility of human experience.

The Sun series was included in the 2008 Carnegie International exhibition “Life on Mars,” featuring 40 artists exploring the human condition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, The Sun series was included in “Brave New Worlds,” an exhibition organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which traveled to the Jumex Collection in Mexico City.

Noguchi Rika was born in 1971 in Saitama, Japan and lives and works in Berlin. In August 2009, The National Art Center in Tokyo will present “Light: Matsumoto Yoko and Noguchi Rika.” Noguchi’s exhibitions include shows at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, The Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai, Japan; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan.