On the wall is a field of 24 monochrome prints, light gray in tone, arranged in an eight-by-three horizontal grid. From a distance, the pictures all appear to be similar. They look a little like simple texture shots -- you know, burlap, canvas, that sort of thing. But step a little closer to Taiji Matsue's installation and the whole world begins to emerge.
The intriguing photographic installation is now up at the Taro Nasu Gallery, a tidy but adventurous art space located in an old, former rice market of a building marooned just across the Sumida River in a slice of Tokyo's Koto Ward that time seems to have forgotten.
The unusual setting is wholly appropriate, for Matsue's work stands among that most rare and wonderful class of contemporary art photography: work that starts out as nothing more than what it is, and yet comes to communicate much more. In this case, what is on the wall are landscapes, but what the pictures accomplish is the creation of an atmosphere that transcends perspective altogether.