Yuki Onodera's Photographic Interference at Galerie RX

Yuki Onodera's exhibition at Galerie RX in Paris (June 28 – September 4, 2002) explores the limits of photography through conceptual interventions. She photographs apartment interiors with a flashlight via mirrors, displays clothes vertically under cloudy skies, and examines Japanese houses bought new only to be demolished after a generation—likened to disposable Kodak cameras. Her series "How to Make a Pearl" (2000-2001) attempts to separate the camera lens from its "inevitable subject" by inserting a marble between the magnifying glass and the eye, creating an "event" that transforms a crowd into statuary. At the zoo, she observes that humans and animals stare at each other without truly seeing, separated by bars; she superimposes a glass pearl over an animal's eye. Onodera views photography as an "interference" and an unobservable "photographic culture" that obstructs access to reality. Her metaphysical crowds open into giant camera obscuras that "upset" the viewer. She aims to "empty" the world, introduce foreign bodies, jam existing mechanisms, and produce "noise" in social silence, revealing margins and residues that escape consumption. The resulting spectral image, sealed in its darkest face, exceeds photography and refuses the exchange it generates.