A day in the early autumn of 1985: Ishimoto Yasuhiro is fascinated by the sight of a withered leaf that had fallen onto a bench and got wet in the rain, which caught his attention during a walk in New York’s Central Park.

That inspired him to start taking photographs for what became the “Leaves” series. On rainy days, Ishimoto would leave his home in Kita-Shinagawa to walk around in the Gotanda area, and point his camera at every withered leaf that the pedestrians’ feet had stamped into the asphalt. In such leaves that barely manage to retain their shapes as they almost become one with the surface of the street, he sensed a vital energy that he felt strongly attracted to. At some point, he began photographing also empty beverage cans that had been thrown out of car windows, and run over and flattened completely by other cars.

That perspective, looking down on things on the ground, is very similar to that in the early “Katsura Imperial Villa” series (1953, 54) that Ishimoto made shortly after his return to Japan. Here he faithfully captured the designs of flagstones beneath his feet in the garden. Zooming in on microscopic details is a practice that also produced “The Mandalas of the Two Worlds” (1973), a work for which Ishimoto made several thousand close-up shots of Mandala pictures – presumedly depictions of the universe itself. One may even see connections to the “HANA” series (1986-87) where Ishimoto thoroughly focuses on the structures and shapes of plants at various stages from budding to withering.

In his later life, Ishimoto’s interest shifted to the part of the physical world in which all kinds of things are generated and extinguished repeatedly and in quick succession. In addition to withered leaves and crushed cans, he photographed footprints in the snow, ceaselessly transforming clouds, the currents of rivers or crowds of people, and other occurrences of transition in his environment, the results of which are collected in the photo book moment (2004).

Presented at this exhibition, revolving around a centerpiece of works from moment, areitemsfromtwo series dedicated to subjects as contrasting as natural leaves and artificially made beverage cans, both sharing the fate of rotting away on the street.