Von Lintel Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru.

In his most recent body of work, the premise remains the same. Kaoru asks famous Japanese models and actresses to describe fantasies of their own deaths and then stages them for the camera. Working in multiple panel sequences, his photos allude to film: wide-angle shots set the scene before giving way to medium and close-up views, details of the women’s fantasies revealed along the way. The models are perfectly coiffed, hair and makeup flawlessly in place, outfitted in couture by Alexander McQueen, Jil Sander and Jean Paul Gaultier.

The glamour of the models’ attire is matched by the exotic locations—from rooftops in India and the woods of the Loire Valley to the confines of a small room in Tokyo. Yet in Kaoru’s latest work there is a shift in the artist’s treatment of his subjects. All traces of blood, violence and outward injury are gone. The causes of death are no longer readily apparent, the ultimate conclusion left up to the viewer. These young models, eyes open wide, captured in that most intimate moment, evoke a new sense of peace and calm, stillness and contemplation. The effect is subtle and refined, illuminating a change in the fundamental quality of Kaoru’s approach. The photographer’s elegant treatment of the human figure in a landscape juxtaposed against the shock value of death is even more pronounced in this latest endeavor.

Izima Kaoru has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and is represented in numerous public and private collections internationally. This is his fifth solo exhibition with Von Lintel Gallery and coincides with the publication of Izima Kaoru: Landscapes with a Corpse, a 192-page monograph published by Hatje Kantz and available at Von Lintel Gallery.