Gentaro Ishizuka solo exhibition 'Glacier Diary' at KOTARO NUKAGA Tennoz

KOTARO NUKAGA Tennoz is pleased to present ‘Glacier Diary’, a solo exhibition by Gentaro Ishizuka, from October 31 to December 19, 2026. As the culmination of his “Glacier Diary” series, in which he has followed by sea kayak glaciers that in recent years have been markedly collapsing and retreating, the exhibition centers on large-scale panoramic works, presented alongside the “Texture_” series of woven C-type prints; a kayak approximately four meters long, built from photographic paper; and “Mass of écriture_”, in which photographs of bookshelves holding the literature of Alaskan polar exploration are folded back into solid masses.

Ishizuka has traveled and photographed the world since his teens, pursuing motifs such as pipelines, glaciers, and the traces left by gold rushes with a large-format film camera. In 2016 he received the Grand Prize of the Steidl Book Award Japan. His work has been shown in exhibitions including ‘Syncopation: Contemporary Encounters with the Modern Masters’ at the Pola Museum of Art（2019） and ‘DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow’ Exhibition 2022–23 at The National Art Center, Tokyo. This is his first solo exhibition at KOTARO NUKAGA since ‘Gold Rush Alaska’ in 2024.

Ishizuka photographs glaciers from a sea kayak, close to the surface of the water. Rocked by the tide, the boat shifts little by little, and the glacier is captured each time at a different distance and angle. The panorama that covers an entire wall of the gallery is a composite of the many frames obtained in this way. As viewers walk along it, an ice face they thought they had already passed appears once again, slightly different in size and angle.

In “Texture_”, Ishizuka cuts two prints of the same glacier into strips and weaves them together like warp and weft. From a distance, a glacier appears; up close, the image unravels into a mesh resembling a low-resolution digital image. The kayak, approximately four meters long, is modeled on the equipment Ishizuka has used on his shoots and built from photographic paper printed with images of the glacier. For “Mass of écriture_”, Ishizuka photographs the spines of books on polar exploration at a library in Anchorage, prints the images on photographic paper, folds them, binds them with thread, and repeatedly coats them in resin and polishes them until they become solid masses.

An opening reception will be held on October 31, with the artist in attendance. On November 28, the gallery will host a screening of the documentary Glacier Diary Chenega Glacier, sponsored by ARC’TERYX and directed by Nathalie Cantacuzino, together with a talk by Ishizuka and the anthropologist Ryuta Imafuku. The time will be announced on the exhibition page. We warmly invite you to visit the gallery.

【EXHIBITION DETAILS】
Artist: Gentaro Ishizuka
Title: ‘Glacier Diary’
Period: October 31 – December 19, 2026
Hours: 11:30 – 18:00（Tue – Sat）
*Closed on Sun, Mon and Public Holidays
Venue: KOTARO NUKAGA Tennoz
Address: TERRADA Art Complex II 1F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 140-0002 Japan
Website: https://kotaronukaga.com/en/exhibition/glacier-diary/

Opening Reception: October 31, 2026, 16:00 – 18:00
*The artist will be present.

Screening of the documentary Glacier Diary Chenega Glacier, sponsored by ARC’TERYX and directed by Nathalie Cantacuzino x Talk Event: November 28, 2026 *Time TBA
Speakers: Gentaro Ishizuka（artist）, Ryuta Imafuku（anthropologist）