front cover
This accordion really has to be experienced in real time — essentially its 86 pages of a woman (the artist's mother) peeling an onion, and many of the pages are blank. As you go through page by page of these very similar images, you start to get bored and then you begin to notice other things in the photographs. Your eye is drawn to an accumulation of household items piled up around the fridge behind the woman. The photos become richer as you continue, all the while witnessing his mom's discomfort as she performs her task. The activity of peeling the onion and its physical effects opens up a panoply of possible metaphors and undergirds this work with a not so subtle sense of humor.
Here's a link to a review by Olga Yatskevich's of this leporello that fills in some of the background around this book and more broadly the artists' photographic practice. Motoyuki Daifu, Holy Onion | Collector Daily
This publication is accompanied by a small booklet in both Japanese and English with a thoughtful essay by Chris Fujiwara titled "Surfaces, Agencement, Clutter."
86 single-sided pages, individually 7.75" x 5.5" and when fully onfolded 39' 5".
back cover
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