Aleksander Janicki (b. 1963), Tokaido; 2014

Photograph; 22 x 37 framed 53 x 53 cm
Signed l. d: Tokaido JP EA/2014 A. Janicki

Three photographs from Japan by A. Janicki, donated for auction, were created during the artist's extraordinary expedition along the historic Tōkaidō route - The East Sea Road. They are a fragment of notations telling about the nature (also in the metaphorical sense) of Japan but also of the world. They are the aftermath of an expedition that Janicki, as the first European, traveled in the footsteps of one of the most famous woodcutters Hiroshige Andō. The works were shown in a series of exhibitions across Japan.

Aleksander Janicki, an interdisciplinary artist, has been connected with Japan for more than two decades. His long-standing dialogue with the culture of the cherry blossom country consists of his numerous exhibitions in Poland and Japan, among others, including: a series of exhibitions at the Manggha Museum on the occasion of the visit of the Imperial Couple of Japan 2002, which Janicki created at the invitation of Andrzej Wajda and Krystyna Zachwatowicz, and the one after crossing the Tokaidu road, created on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the museum in 2014. It is also the project of the Polish pavilion of Expo 2005 in AICHI, Japan (created in collaboration with K. Ingarden and team), HiQ formation concerts at the Mii-dera temple, exhibitions and concerts as part of the Tatsuno ART Project, a long-standing collaboration with Japanese composer Shoichi Yabuta or finally the recent exhibition at Tresures Gallery in Tokyo in 2019/20 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Poland and Japan with the significant title: East-West-Infinity, an exhibition that is a kind of summary of the experience based on the dialogue of cultures. The works to be auctioned have just been shown for the first time in Tokyo, Japan. They have not yet been exhibited in Poland.

"Anyone who has ever tried to cross this culturally and transportation-important route has been protected by the spirit of the ukiyo-e engravings of the Fifty-Three Stations of Tōkaidō, by Andō Hiroshige. In them, Hiroshige depicted 53 shukuba stations between Edo and Kyoto. One of the more frequent and indefatigable travelers along this route was the poet and explorer Bashō - one of his most famous peregrinations, which began in 1684, lasted seven months and gave rise to his poetic travel diary Nozarashi kikō (Records of the Weather - a Shielded Skeleton). (...) Tōkaidō is a vast and extraordinarily rich fabric, woven of story threads, images, lines and routes, which overlap to create a multi-sensory space of memory - both individual, encompassing the experiences of individuals, and collective, taking the form of tradition. It is in this space that the 'locals,' the 'residents,' the people who have been rooted in this memory for generations (as the owner of a ryokan, an inn that has stood on the route since the 15th century) meet the 'foreigners,' the newcomers, the wanderers."

-Alek Janicki