TORII GATE

Galleria 13 is pleased to present a selection of works by renowned Anglo-American photographer Michael Kenna, dedicated to Japanese Torii Gates. Kenna has travelled the world with his camera, but it is undisputed that, of all his works, those dedicated to Japan best express the true essence of his photographic research.

Kenna sees the torii as a symbol of Japanese spirituality, particularly of the way Shintoism conceives nature. In his writings/interviews, he states that torii are everywhere in Japan, scattered throughout the landscape, not only attached to monumental shrines, but integrated into the natural environment, a sign that for the Japanese “every element of the earth” can be inhabited by a sacred essence.
The torii therefore functions as a mediating device: between what is “human/constructed” and what is “natural”, between the visible and the invisible, between historical time and eternal time. It becomes an invitation to respect, contemplation, a pause from the frenzy. Kenna himself describes it as a ‘reminder’ to take care of the landscape, to be impressed by its fragile beauty.

Kenna often frames the Torii as a threshold that frames fragments of the landscape: it can be placed in the foreground, partially immersed in fog, water, snow, or contrasted with a vast empty expanse. In this way, it creates tension between presence and absence, between the built and the natural, between the human and the divine. It is as if the torii were a visual sign indicating that “something beyond the visible” is possible there.

In addition to solitary trees on snowy expanses, the winter sea and snow-covered hills punctuated by poles and fences, Torii diversifies by bringing the human element into his photography, an element that is nevertheless a boundary which, thanks to its intrinsic spiritual function, connects the viewer to the divine.