Reliance, Consequence, and What Gets Lost
Clinging to something — a person, a belief, a convenience — carries a cost that only becomes visible in its absence. In TSUMITOBATSU, Daisuke Matsumoto works through staged and performance-based photography to trace that cost: the moral weight of dependency, the rough treatment of those nearby, and the quiet disappearance of what one failed to notice in time. The 35 images across 56 pages do not illustrate a narrative so much as hold a condition still long enough to examine it.
Published in 2014 by Zen Foto Gallery in a hardcover edition of 500 copies, the book is bilingual in English and Japanese. It belongs to a body of work in Japanese contemporary photography that treats the constructed image as a site of ethical inquiry rather than aesthetic display. Further titles in this vein can be found in our Photobooks collection.
Daisuke Matsumoto
Daisuke Matsumoto was born in 1985 in Tottori Prefecture, Japan, and graduated from the Japan Institute of Photography and Film in 2006. His practice centres on staged and performance-based photography, constructing scenes that engage questions of morality, dependency, and interpersonal consequence.
His debut publication, SEKAINOHEIWA, was released by Zen Foto Gallery in 2012, accompanied by a solo exhibition at the gallery. He has participated in international art book fairs and exhibitions across Tokyo, Kyoto, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Los Angeles, and received the Darizine's Award at the Einstein Photo Competition Vol. 2 in 2011.
