Session
Press
セッション
プレス
Bible
バイブル
Momo Okabe
岡部桃

Credit

—Photography: Momo Okabe
—Design: Momo Okabe & Mika Murai
—Text: Ko Kosugi
—Translation: Daniel Gonzalez


Specs

—9.84" x 14.17"
—Hardcover
—122 pages
—Edition of 300 (20 for LTD Edition)
—2014
—OUT OF PRINT


Reviews
—TIME magazine
—photobookstore.co.uk
—Collector Daily
—Best books 2013 Photoeye
—Kassel Photobook Award 2014
—photobookstore.co.uk
—Photoeye best books 2014 by colin pantall

Session Press is pleased to announce “Bible” a new book by Momo Okabe. Bible compiles Okabe’s recent works including many unpublished photographs taken in Tokyo, Miyagi and India between 2008 and 2014. This will be Okabe’s second US monograph published by Session Press following her unique artist book “Dildo” in 2013.

“Bible” is a testament to the unwavering complexity of Okabe’s everyday life with her lovers and friends. Alongside their pursuance of a genuine identity and sense of belonging, Okabe unfolds the "sad, yet beautiful scenery that they could perceive after overcoming the long and difficult struggle out from their traumatic past.” The sincerity and depth of Okabe’s work is visceral; unwinding a sweetness within the tension of their collective alienation as if she has built a window into a kaleidoscopic heart.

Okabe has been highly acclaimed by Nobuyoshi Araki at New Cosmos of Photography in 1999 and Masafumi Sanai at Epson Color Image in 2009 as well as by many other prestigious competitions in Japan. It is difficult, however, to position Okabe’s work into the norm of contemporary Japanese photography often associated with its perfection in composition and quiet meditation with subjects. Outside of the mainstream photo community, Okabe has pioneered her own electric yet sensitive color pallet to convey her overflowing emotions onto her work. In addition, she shifts away from the overtly intellectualized practice so prevalent in today’s contemporary photography scene and gives photography a refreshed power. “Bible” begins to reposition our critical perspectives towards a regeneration of compassion, intimacy, and camaraderie.

日本語で読む

セッションプレス第5冊目の写真集は、岡部桃の『バイブル』です。2008年から2014年にかけて東京、宮城、インドで撮影された作品で構成されています。赤から紫へと至る虹色の日々の光景は、岡部が見て感じた心象風景であり、鮮烈な印象を見るものに与えます。オランダのFoam美術館が主催するフォトアワード「Paul Huf Award」グランプリを『Dildo』と並び受賞しました。


Artist Statement

My mother was always half-asleep by 8:00 p.m.
Each morning, she woke at 3:00 to begin the day’s chores.

My mother always knew when I did something bad.
Even when I did those bad things far away,
Somehow she knew by the time I came home.
She never got angry, but always looked sad.
When I peeked into the kitchen later,
I saw her crying alone.

My mother took sedatives.
One time she overdosed,
And I found her—
Passed out in the very bathtub
She had been cleaning.

My mother often went missing.
Sometimes it was for as short as one week.
Sometimes it was for as long as three years.
When I turned 28, she left for good.
She jumped from a tall building, and killed herself.
Everyone cried at the funeral.
Everyone except me.
They cried not understanding
The real meaning of her death.

My mother used to speak ill of my father and sister.
But to this day, I believe that she never said the same of me.
I mean, she stood in front of my apartment on the day she died.
At least, that’s what the building’s super – an old woman – told me later.

Twelve years passed.
One day, I went into my father’s room and
Opening the doors of my mother’s small altar
Found it coated in dust and grime
Like a filthy garbage can.
I felt sorry for my mother
So made it nice and clean.

Everyday since then, I’ve prayed to that altar.
In the process, all the evil within me vanished:
Violence. Hysteria. Sleeping pills. Coke. Addiction.
All the things that hurt those around me.
I may be a reformed man
But know that all the misdeeds of my past
Are yet to come raining down upon me
At some point.
Even so, I’ve become a little bit happier
That’s enough for me.

The face in the portrait inside mom’s little altar is always changing.
Whenever I’m tempted to do wrong, her face is stern.
Whenever I’m suffering, she seems as though she might cry.
Today, when I look at my mother’s picture,
I see the trace of a smile.

Only now am I beginning to learn what even children know.

Essay by Ko Kosuge
(Translation: Daniel Gonzalez)

Momo Okabe
岡部桃

Momo Okabe
(Japan, 1981)

Momo Okabe was born in Japan in 1981 and received his B.F.A. in photography from Nihon University in 2004. She received the Special Award “The 8th Exhibition of New Cosmos of Photography in 2009 and selected Nobuyoshi Araki,” “P3 art and environment, Tokyo” in 1999 when Okabe was still in high school. Okabe has shown her work for “Japanese nude photography” at Museum Sieboldhuis, Leiden in 2019, Works from the Foam Collection, Foam Museum, Amsterdam in 2018, Unssen, Amsterdam In 2017, Belfast Photo Festival, Ireland in 2017 Paul Hof Prize at FOAM museum in 2016 and “Bible & Dildo” at Gallery Naruyama in Tokyo 2015 and so on. Okabe has published “Dildo” (Session Press, 2013), “Unseen / Tsunami” (co published with Kokey Kanno by Dashwood Books, 2012), “Dildo” (Artbeat Publisher, 2010)

日本語で読む

岡部桃
(1981年・日本)

1981年、日本に生まれる。4歳まで、フランスで過ごす。日本大学芸術学部写真学科を卒業する。第8回キャノン写真新世新世紀展での優秀賞授賞(荒木経惟選)や、第19回ひとつぼ展入賞。国内外の著名なギャラリーや、美術館でで多くの展示会を開催する。