Tsutomu Endo’s New Nostalgia
Title: 1999
Year: 2025
Medium: Photo mounted on board, with circular overmat.
Dimensions: 90 x 90 cm (mat size)
Note: Archival reversal film (1999). Color reversal with red filter. Experimental spirit physicalized. Sandwich print.
Photographer Tsutomu Endo’s recent exhibition, “SHAKE-UP THE OLD FUTURE,” marks a distinct break with the straightforward photography shows of his past. The works on display at Canon Gallery, in the Ginza area of Tokyo, were truly worthy of being called “contemporary art.” Endo’s snowboard-history remixes had him traversing the boundaries between photographer, archivist and artist.
The works on display were created by re-photographing and collaging old positive film from the 1990s and 2000s. The materials were not limited to his own personal archives. Rather, Endo’s past images are intermixed with photographs found in a vast forgotten archive. An unnamed, now-defunct Japanese snowboarding media company had the slides stored in a warehouse, awaiting their disposal and demise.
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