Mapping the Invisible: Kikuji Kawada’s First Major Solo Exhibition in France

Gen de Art
Jul 14
4 min read

This summer, amidst the historic stone corridors of Arles, a landmark exhibition offers a rare window into the visionary oeuvre of one of Japan’s most revered post-war photographers. Presented by KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival in collaboration with SIGMA Corporation, Kikuji Kawada: Endless Map – Invisible marks the artist’s first major solo presentation in France—and a profound meditation on memory, time, and the invisible forces that shape history.

Hosted at VAGUE (Arles) from July 7 to October 3, 2025, as part of the prestigious “Arles Associé” sequence of the Rencontres de la Photographie, the exhibition is curated by Sayaka Takahashi (PGI, Tokyo) and artfully staged by Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, co-founders of KYOTOGRAPHIE, with spatial design by Hiromitsu Konishi and washi artisan Wataru Hatano.

Poster: From the series The Last Cosmology © Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI

A Theatre of Memory and Light

At age 92, Kikuji Kawada remains a creative force of uncommon vitality—sharing new photographic works via Instagram and continuously revisiting and reimagining his iconic archive. Endless Map – Invisible brings together, for the first time, four of his most influential series, tracing over six decades of photographic practice that resonates with both political urgency and metaphysical depth.

This year’s exhibition also coincides with the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—a historic gravity that underpins the show’s reflective and poetic tone.

“I never photograph anything other than the here and now,” Kawada says. “But once transmitted or printed, the image becomes a distant memory, a shadow, an echo from elsewhere.”

Four Series, One Vision

The Map (1959–1965) and its contemporary counterpart Endless Map (2021–) anchor the exhibition. A groundbreaking photobook that redefined the form, The Map is a fragmented narrative of Japan’s trauma and reconstruction after World War II. Its layered, abstract images—juxtaposing the Genbaku Dome with ghostly architectural relics—created a new visual language that merged design, metaphor, and image into a total artwork.

“The darkroom became a light room, and the prints began to speak differently,” Kawada reflects. “The Map became Endless Map—an infinite map, open to new gestures, new media.”

The Last Cosmology (1995) introduces a celestial register, depicting eclipses, heliospheres, and atmospheric disturbances as metaphors for political instability and psychological unrest during Japan’s post-Shōwa transformation. This “crepuscular cosmology” blurs the boundary between omen and document, science and sorrow.

Los Caprichos (1972–present), inspired by Goya’s etchings, explores the architecture of anxiety. Photographed during Japan’s era of rapid economic ascent, the series juxtaposes corridors, symbolic prisons, and labyrinthine voids—spaces where time and logic collapse into psychic geometry. Recently revisited and expanded, it is now described by Kawada as “Endless Map, Unfinished, Continue.”

Finally, Vortex (2022)—developed from images originally shared on Instagram—dives into abstraction and urban vertigo. Chaotic swirls, fragmented lights, and distorted structures evoke collapse and cosmic unease, pushing the photographic medium toward the threshold of perception.

Kikuji Kawada From the series Vortex © Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy PGI

An Exhibition that Breathes

The scenography of Endless Map – Invisible is itself an artwork. At VAGUE, images from The Map are displayed on a large, central square structure; vintage prints rest within tokonoma-style alcoves. The red washi-lined room housing The Last Cosmology evokes the interior of a visionary eye. For Los Caprichos, a traditional Japanese byōbu folding screen forms a stage for visual riddles. Vortex—rendered across multiple projections—disrupts chronology and immerses viewers in an atmospheric ebb and flow.

This poetic interplay of texture, space, and time, rooted in Japanese materials and design philosophy, is a hallmark of KYOTOGRAPHIE’s distinctive curatorial approach.

Photobook as Philosophy

Kawada, who began his career in publishing, regards the photobook as a total artwork—a vessel for narrative, sensory architecture, and metaphysical inquiry. His pioneering book Chizu (The Map), created with graphic designer Kohei Sugiura, is considered a masterpiece on par with Robert Frank’s The Americans and William Klein’s Life is Good & Good for You in New York.

At the close of the exhibition, visitors are invited into “A Life in Books”—a space dedicated to Kawada’s rare publications, accompanied by a filmed interview and a new release: KYOTOGRAPHIE: A Kyoto Story | A Twelve-Year Cycle, a retrospective publication celebrating the festival’s decade-long journey as a global photography platform.

A Dialogue Between Precision and Reverie

In a time defined by image saturation and fleeting digital impressions, Kikuji Kawada: Endless Map – Invisible is a quiet revolution—a visual essay on impermanence, rupture, and poetic resistance. It stands as a testament not only to Kawada’s enduring vision, but to the vital role of photography as both archive and oracle.

At once monumental and deeply intimate, this exhibition reminds us that the most powerful maps are not those that locate, but those that allow us to get lost—and perhaps, to see anew.