The Hof Art Gallery in Bangkok has just opened an exhibition dedicated to talented Japanese photographer A.K. Kimoto who died unexpectedly at the end of March. In a twist to the usual photo exhibition themes his bleak, personal and powerful work, shown in clusters of large black-and-white prints hung on faceless faded grey concrete walls, is complemented by the lurid paintings of his artist partner Panotphorn Changlek, known as "Cartoon", and the two opposing visual identities combine with a bang to offer an insight into an artistically talented couple. The exhibition, titled "I do what I do because I only have 2 hands", focuses around a visit to Badakhshan, a province in the remote North East of Afghanistan squeezed between Central Asia, China and Pakistan, and thus a major transit route for heroin being smuggled out of the country, as well as a key poppy growing area. The work is raw, gripping and personal, the photographer has become enmeshed with his subject, he is integrated into his work.
The exhibition guide explains something the background to this series of graphic, captivating images and the sense of hopelessness and devastated lives that they convey, emotions that enveloped A.K. Kimoto's attention: "In the remote North-Eastern province of Badakhshan in Afghanistan, opium and heroin addiction are ravaging isolated mountain communities, and the staggering numbers are only getting worse. In some places, it is said that 70% of the population use drugs in some form, from hashish, to raw opium and refined heroin powder. It is not uncommon to find three generations of a family smoking together behind closed doors. Traditionally, opium was used as a cure-all, the magic medicine that could work wonders on anything from back pains to headaches to the nagging cough that every one has during the brutally cold winter months. The residents of Ishkashem, on the Tajikistan border say that it was never a problem before. Now, the situation is changing. In Ishkashem, it is said that at least 50% of the population has a serious drug addiction problem. Other remote villages further down the inaccessible Wakhan Valley are said to have an unbelievable 70-80% addiction rate. Children are born into addiction every day, and thus, the cycle is perpetuated."
A.K. Kimoto first visited Badakhshan in October 2008 and using all his richly developed skill with the lens, and a true photographer's ability to stir to life the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" he pours out, in stunning visual form, the desolation he witnessed. And which clearly affected him. That taut and intimate personal connection is thrust onto the viewer and we see what he saw, we are transported in an instant while the Hof does its job: the gallery offers no respite, nothing to cling to, no return to reality, and so we connect with the message unfettered. A photographer doesn't use words or explanations, his work is everything, and only the truly talented can grip you tightly and immerse you in a message, and for certain A.K. Kimoto had that rare ability. The quaintly tucked away Hof Art Gallery, which is just a stone's throw off Ratchadaphisek Road in Lad Phrao, is the perfect environment to show off this work. It's bleak, bare walls complement the sharp images with little respite. The crushing poverty and shattered lives tear at you from the big smouldering and piercing eyes of the young child smoking opium to every sharp winkled wavy line etched into the face of a world-weary old man, from the ramshackle, crumbling dwellings to the empty harshness of the landscape, the story unfolds.
This though is more than just A.K. Kimoto's exhibition, and as the guide says: "This collaboration is a celebration of the combined talents of two people who were as close as individuals could be. We lost A.K. Kimoto suddenly at the end of March. I say we because he touched so many peoples lives in his brief time in this world and he represented so much promise to the photography world. The loss to friends and the photography world compare little to the loss to his family and his partner in life, and painter, Cartoon (Panotphorn Changlek). Cartoon has selected photographs of AKs and created something entirely new in her powerful, bold and vivid paintings. When two people come together, they inevitably witness the world in a different way but their vision can complement and almost exist simultaneously as matter and anti-matter, in balance and free from friction or conflict. They can stand on their own and yet feed off the energy taken from the other, given back to the other. Cartoons work takes A.K.s vision and filters it through a different cultural context and different wave length while leaving from exactly the same point of departure. It makes one wonder what could have been and how this seed could have flourished. Still, this project speaks louder than anyone of us ever could."
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