Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Someday, Chicago

Someday, Chicago: Yasuhiro Ishimoto and the Institute of Design” focuses on how photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s (1921-2012) short, yet formative, time in Chicago from 1946-1952 made him a significant conduit for the influence of new-Bauhaus philosophies and aesthetics in postwar Japan. Emphasizing both the formal and social characteristics of his work, the exhibition traces Ishimoto’s arrival in the city after internment in Colorado, his training at the Institute of Design (ID), his democratic documentation of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods, and his extensive influence on a generation of artists after his return to Japan. It was in Chicago that he first developed his uniquely modernist vision in dialogue with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and other teachers there, and in the city’s streets, where he captured social changes reflective of a broader shifts in the United States.  In looking at the impact of his work, and in particular of his “Someday, Somewhere” and “Chicago, Chicago” series, the project suggests how Ishimoto spread that vision beyond the city and the U.S. into an international arena.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.