Yokohama is the place symbolic of the beginning of Japanese modernism and the country's opening to the world. With the Europeans, the art form of photography, still in its infancy, arrives in the country around 1860 and experiences a meteoric rise here, increasingly replacing the traditional pictorial technique of ukiyo-e woodblock prints as the central pictorial medium.
The exhibition Yokohama 1868-1912. When Images Learned to Shine is devoted to the idiosyncratic final chapter of ukiyo-e and the parallel rise of Japanese photography. With more than 250 woodcuts and historical photographs, the show offers surprising, largely unknown insights into a country in transition and into a unique chapter in Japanese art.
The present-day port city of Yokohama played a central role in the opening of Japan: not far from the small fishing town, the "Black Ships" under U.S. Admiral Perry dropped anchor in 1853. This military show of force ushered in the end of Japan's 200-year isolation and forced the island kingdom to open up to international trade. As a result, large foreign settlements sprang up, international trading companies opened branches in the city, and Yokohama advanced to become a popular stopover for the first bourgeois tourists on their classic "Grand Tour" around the world.
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http://www.museumangewandtekunst.de/de/museum/ausstellungen/yokohama-18681912.html
