Isolated Places (Signed)

Keizo Kitajima's photobook "Isolated Places" was published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name held at RAT HOLE GALLERY in 2012. It features landscapes photographed across Japan, centered on the ongoing "PLACES" series that began in 1992. Traversing diverse geographies from cities to mountain villages and remote islands, the book consistently questions the anonymity of landscapes.

The depicted landscapes do not strongly assert a specific sense of place. Rather, they are fragments of vision, stripped of their unique contexts and homogenized. While earlier works focused on repetitive urban landscapes, the shooting locations gradually shifted to the peripheries of various regions in Japan. This change, however, is not a thematic shift but rather a deepening of perspective. The grainy texture and hard gradation detach the landscapes from explanation, leaving only traces of human presence. The distinction between urban and non-urban is invalidated, and both are juxtaposed at the same distance.

In this book, landscapes are not objects that evoke memories or nostalgia, but are presented as being in a state of having "lost their face and name." Keizo Kitajima's practice functions not as a visual means to identify places, but as a device to suspend them. It is a record that quietly reveals the contours of contemporary sensibility through the form of landscape.

[Title] ISOLATED PLACES
[Publisher] RAT HOLE GALLERY
[Publication Date] April 6, 2012
[Page Count] 96 pages
[Size] Approx. 258*220*12mm / 660g
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] Japanese, English
[Title Reading] ISOREITEDDO PUREISHISU
[Author/Editor] Keizo Kitajima/Author
[Printing] -
[ISBN] -
[Condition] Used, signed [6] Good to Very Good (Cover: slight dent, Body: slight age-related tanning on edges)
[Accessories] None
[Featured In] -
[Related Exhibition] April 6 - May 23, 2012 RAT HOLE GALLERY (Tokyo)

Keizo Kitajima

Born in Suzaka City, Nagano Prefecture in 1954. Photographer.
He began his photography career in earnest after joining "WORKSHOP Photography School" and co-founded the independently operated gallery "Image Shop CAMP" with Daido Moriyama and others in the late 1970s. In 1979, he received the Photographic Society of Japan's Newcomer's Award for "Photo Express Tokyo." He received the 8th Ihei Kimura Photography Award for his photobook "New York" (Byakuya Shobo).

Subsequently, he photographed East and West Berlin, Eastern European and Asian cities, and the former Soviet Union, documenting the tension of cities and societies under the Cold War structure. Since the 1990s, he has continued to create, updating his themes and methods, including "PORTRAITS," which captures ordinary people, and "UNTITLED RECORDS," which photographs landscapes across Japan from fixed points. At the same time, he has continuously re-examined and reconfigured his past works.

A retrospective exhibition, "Borrowed Places, Borrowed Time" (November 29, 2025 - January 18, 2026), surveying his work from its early days to the present, is being held at the Nagano Prefectural Art Museum.

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