Jiro Kamata: Momentopia

Artist list

Jiro Kamata

Click goes the camera. In a moment, the present becomes a memory. Innumerable times, a lens has transformed reality to something the size of a postage stamp. Lenses, a natural phenomenon, but placed in a camera, they work wonders.

Jiro Kamata´s initial professional training in Japan was geared toward classical jewellery, but at the art academy in Munich, he later learned a new approach to form and history. Kamata began using camera lenses in his work as a contemporary alternative to the temptation of precious stones. From hundreds of obsolete cameras, he got lenses that he used to great effect, working wonders with their lustre and colors. With his jewellery, he effortlessly dispels the separation between the concepts tradition and avant-garde, between perfectionist technique and visual clarity.

Thousands of people once smiled for the photographer behind those lenses. When we see ourselves reflected in Kamata´s jewellery, we become for an instant part of one of innumerable unknown stories. Once again, reality is captured; once again, the lens works its magic; once again, it is but a moment.

Ward Schrijver