This portrait is taken from Oliver Sieber’s series *Gegenüber*. Folded poster-zines that he photographed and published in 2024/2025. Here we see Susumu Fujita, Paris 2024.
In March/April 2019, we were once again in Osaka and Tokyo for an extended period. We see the many small themed bars in Japan as places for exchange and discourse on a wide variety of topics, including photography and photobooks, often serving as meeting points for various figures in the photography world. So when Tina Miyake offered us the use of the adjoining room to her showroom, it was immediately clear that we wanted to set up an ANT!FOTO Bar there, modelled on these examples, and run it once a month. (Susumu Fujita runs the Kodoji Bar on a rotating basis together with other members of the Kaido group and other photographers.
At the bar of the Kodoji Bar, we have met photographers, printers and bookmakers time and again over the years. The bar houses an extensive, very personal collection of photobooks. Despite the language barriers, this has repeatedly led to interesting exchanges through the books and photographs. The bar is an inspiring place not just for us: it is also an important venue for Kodoji Press in Switzerland, The PhotoBookMuseum in Cologne and Emilie Lauriolat/Sasori Books.
A special event was created by Henguchi who came from Osaka to Düsseldorf on the occasion of #duesseldorfkontinuum . The live event took place at the Rote Halle (thank you @rotterdam_presenta ) together with @manuel_boden@ringofvibration@ogoshimarie@bushi05@soya_ar.tacolv thanks also to @akikookamoto_du@milchlab and everybody who came. From this there will be more communication and KONTINUUM between Osaka and Düsseldorf. #oliversieber #katjastuke #boehmkobayashi #antifoto PS Manuel and I are currently a tandem at the @labk.nrw mentoring program ;-)
2011 was quite an important year for our „relation“ to Japan and the topics we became interested in and works we created. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tohoku earthquake on 11 March 2011. Since then we met activists in Japan, joined protest demonstrations, exchanged with artists and learned a lot abour places, spaces and history in Japan. We created „Tokyo No Hate“ which includes portraits and landscape photographs. We developed different forms of this work.
The first presentation was during Open Source Festival in Düsseldorf in 2012. We just brought a selection of un-edited images and let the audience decide which images they wanted to see from Japan in 2012. It was the first collaboration with Sven Vieweg @sven_vieweg who created a wonderful clear vinyl edition.
For the second zine we took more images during protests in Tokyo in 2013. This zine is still available as xeroxed „print on demand“.
„Tokyo no Hate“ the way you see it in this image was exhibited before at:
Filmwerkstatt, Düsseldorf 2016
Unseen Fair, Amsterdam 2018
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Hamburg 2018
and in different forms at:
Tokyo Express @the_photobookmuseum , Cologne 2021
(with a DJ set by @shunsukeoshio )
Glasmoog KHM, Cologne 2026 (incl. One-channel video „Midosuji“)
Since 2012 I think Konohana is our home when we go to Osaka.
A text from 2021: Konohana is a district in central Osaka, near the harbour and surrounded by rivers and water; a place characterised by old houses, shops, small businesses and industry, as well as small bars and cafés for the locals. The community consists mainly of older people, workers, fishermen and foreigners working at the Universal City amusement park. The 2025 EXPO will take place in Konohana Yumeshima (Dream Island). Currently, it is just a wasteland and a landfill island with a container terminal and a 7-Eleven convenience store.
Over the past 10 or 12 years, artists, musicians, and young architects have been moving to Konohana, establishing studios, opening hostels and shared houses, small galleries, bakeries, and more.
Henguchi is one of these people and a central, influential figure who introduced us to Konohana. In 2011, we held the first ‚photobattle‘ together in Konohana, marking the beginning of an ongoing artistic exchange.
It takes time to experience a district; and we learned that you can’t just point to anything interesting on a map and talk briefly about it. It’s the time it takes to go from one place to another, the smells, the atmosphere – sometimes even the boredom – that make the experience stick in your memory and make it easier to understand, and it’s also very helpful if you don’t speak the same language.
In 2019, with the help of Henguchi, Oliver and I invited some local people to discuss EXPO with us, talking about the memories of the older participants of EXPO 1970 (an important and influential event at the time), their fears, hopes and expectations for EXPO 2025 in Konohana. This edited conversation became the soundtrack for this video.
In 2019, I cycled through Konohana, around the studio where we were staying, connecting different places and memories. (Left) During the 2020 lockdown, when we couldn’t travel, I did the same ride virtually using Google Street View. (right).
#konohanadream #osakakontinuum #katjastuke #oliversieber #boehmkobayashi
Oliver usually doesn’t exhibit single portraits from his extensive series »Imaginary Club«. However, he made an exception for OSAKA KONTINUUM, a very personal selection of works created over the last twenty years. The woman in the photograph is a good friend and a great artist from Osaka (now based in Wakayama, part of ANT!FOTO 2011) Na Chan @ff_fujimurafamily
Oliver writes about Imaginary Club: »It is interesting to observe how people from different countries develop a mutual understanding of each other through music and different styles of dress codes and meet in small clubs as well as at large festivals around the world. The attraction of music and fan culture is equally strong. In „Imaginary Club“, not only friends meet, but also other artists, musicians and people from different communities.
Most of the pictures were taken spontaneously and without prior appointment on the street or in places of common interest. In previous works, attempts have also been made to integrate living spaces such as apartments or retreats (e.g. band practice rooms) into the visual dialog.
The city and space with all their signs have an effect on each of us. We are unconsciously influenced by many things. This was taken into consideration when the black and white pictures were taken. The space behind the people photographed, in the dark background, remains unrecognizable, even though it is there.
Installation views from:
Openeyegallery Liverpool, 2020
Kyotographie 2015
Kunstmuseum Bonn 2016
Photobookmuseum 2015
Villa Noailles, Hyères 2014
Kunsthalle Gießen 2019
#oliversieber #imaginaryclub #boehmkobayashi
oliversieber.de
When we arrived at our residency ‚home‘ in Sakaisuji Honmachi in 2006, our hosts had bought food they thought we would like, including spaghetti, canned tuna, Japanese red and white wine, biscuits, crackers, Tabasco sauce and cheese. (Thank you again Yoshihito Kawabata and the whole team of the Clean Brothers. And of course Kaoru, Yasuko and the whole team of the arts department of the Osaka prefecture and Karin Rauers at the cultural office in Düsseldorf)
At that time, the Apple charger was way too heavy for fragile sockets and adapter…. So we created these little sculptures in various places using different objects. This one is from our kitchen in Osaka. It’s a very collective memory, I assume.
The other site-specific installations:
Chelsea Hotel NYC, 2008 (with a very missed one-star/only-in-Japan-Converse)
House Ikebukuro, Tokyo 2007
Chidoriso, Konohana 2013
Yesterday Henghuchi, his daughter Ichie and the videographer @bushi05 arrived in Düsseldorf. They visited the OSAKA KONTINUUM and later we had dinner at @shunsukeoshio and @saamha17 together with @ogoshimarie . Thanks so much for the lovely evening. Today he will perform together with Taka Kagitomi @ringofvibration in Bochum @kunstmuseum_bochum
In 2010 Henguchi and I were introduced by @tetsuya_goto and in 2011 we performed our first photo battle at #Baikado Gallery in Konohana, Osaka and @bloom_gallery in Juso, Osaka. The potobattle was always about communication and exchange, photography and poetry, and it developed over the years. During ANT!FOTO 2011 we performed in a subway station in Düsseldorf, and there were encounters, exhibitions, events, concerts, walks and zines in Konohana and Düsseldorf ever since.
The next „Live Event“ will take place tomorrow in Düsseldorf from 6 to 8 pm. I don’t know@what will happen, but please come by if you have time and join the conversation. Thank you @akikookamoto_du for making this possible.
We will talk about this (and so much more) on the two upcoming Tea-Time-Events at the Stadtmuseum (Sat 23./30. May from 3 pm) when we open the vitrine in the exhibition.
Find everything about 20 years of exchange here: photo-battle.org
The other series Oliver #oliversieber worked on in Osaka 2006 was »Character Thieves«. In his »Book Countdown« Oliver wrote: »Even before our first Osaka residency in 2006, we loved spending time in a café on Düsseldorf’s Immermannstraße, run by three Spanish sisters. The neighborhood was a pleasant mix of Japanese supermarkets and other shops. On Saturdays, the first cosplayers would walk past us. I started to research—and found it increasingly fascinating to explore this world more deeply.
I had long been interested in group identities and individuality. Until then, music had often been the defining element. “Identity and City” was already a theme in the Citizens Handbook, and I began photographing young cosplayers in their homes and surroundings, as well as what caught my eye in the neighborhood and on the way to their places. What makes a portrait? How do I learn something about someone?
The roles the cosplayers embodied revealed surprisingly much about their inner selves through their masks—without many words.«
I think showing »Character Thieves« at the Stadtmuseum, the local museum of the city‘s history, makes total sense. Lenneth, a character from the anime Valkyrie, fits perfectly alongside the 500-year-old portraits of dukes and duchesses.
/book-countdown/
#characterthieves #boehmkobayashi #osakakontinuum
Character Thieves is an extensive series of portraits and landscapes and was exhibited before at:
Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, 2021
NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, 2015
National Gallery of Kosovo, 2013
Kunsthaus Wien, 2012
Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund, 2010
Fotomonth Krakow, 2007
and more
The book is still available.
Just send a DM or Email.
Oliver Sieber
Character Thieves
72 pages, 24 x 33 cm
with a text by Mariko Takeuchi
published by Schaden.com
feat. BöhmKobayashi, 2007
When we first arrived in Osaka, Oliver (#oliversieber) was working on two series: J_Subs was a continuation of his SkinsModsTeds series. In Osaka, Oliver encountered a fascinating group of people who embraced the traditions of British and American music and subculture. They established their own network of clubs, fashion shops and barbershops to live life outside of the hierarchical Japanese society. In Düsseldorf we show only one framed image of the whole series of 66 portraits, which he usually only exhibits as a complete installation.
Installation views:
Bundeskunsthalle Bonn 2020
Kunsthalle Gießen 2019
Kyotographie 2015
Fotomuseum Winterthur 2009
#boehmkobayashi #osakakontinuum #katjastuke #j_subs
In May 2026 we show DAS OSAKA KONTINUUM in a small, very personal exhibition in Düsseldorf.
This was one of the first images I took in Osaka. I was interested in the difference between private and public space, especially the increasing presence of CCTV cameras on the streets. Working with a video camera, I captured short sequences of people around me, then selected certain frames and re-photographed them from a TV screen. Usually, I chose just one frame, but since I still have all the footage, I found moments that felt compelling to show in a different way.The work in the exhibition features a sequence of three almost identical images of a red-haired student I filmed 20 years ago near Umeda Station. Together, they capture a moment spanning less than a second.
This work was published in a book by Kodoji Press, with a text by Christoph Hochhäusler. @kodoji_press #christophhochhäusler
katjastuke.de/cctv-cctv-osaka-public/
Installation views:
»Katja Stuke, Oliver Sieber: Das Böhm Projekt« SK Stiftung Kultur, photographische Sammlung, Köln 2007
»Katja Stuke, Oliver Sieber: Sequence as a Dialogue« Kunsthalle Gießen, 2019
Offscreen Fair, Paris 2023
#boehmkobayashi #osakakontinuum
In 2006, Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber were fellows of the ArtEX program, an artist exchange between Düsseldorf and Osaka. Since then, they have regularly returned to Japan. After returning from Osaka, they met Marie Ogoshi, who had just arrived in Düsseldorf to study at the Academy.
The works exhibited here are individual motifs from extensive projects that were created over long periods. In their artistic practice, Stuke & Sieber engage with social issues, political and social landscapes, as well as questions of identity and belonging. (More details at: photo-battle.org) Without their intensive engagement with the Japanese concept of photography, the significance of photobooks in Japanese art history, and the numerous encounters with Japanese colleagues, their publication project Böhm Kobayashi, the Photo-Battle, or ANT!FOTO would certainly not have been conceivable.
The Memory Box contains various ephemera and mementos from the last 20 years. Artist colleagues and friends have contributed photographs, sketches, objects, and sound. On Saturday, May 23 (»Japantag«) and May 30, we will open the display case during a Tea Time Event. Marie will also be present.
You can find the Geburtstagszimmer on the ground floor of the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf’s collection presentation. It is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 11 AM to 6 PM. #boehmkobayashi #oliversieber #katjastuke #marieogoshi
