Over the course of his life, the photographer Ishimoto Yasuhiro repeatedly visited and lived in Chicago in Illinois, USA. During each of his stays, he captured the respective conditions of the city in photographs. He would spend the days shooting scenes in the streets, and devoted himself to his work in the darkroom at night, with such passion that earned him a reputation of “working 29 hours a day on photography.” As a result of his somewhat austere lifestyle, combined with the technical specifications of photo cameras at the time, Ishimoto’s photographs shot at night are less well-known. But as a matter of fact, he used to roam the streets also after dark, to point his camera at all kinds of people who celebrated the nightlife.

This exhibition focusing on “Chicago at Night” features portraits of children on Halloween, grown-ups at clubs and cafes, and other photos that were taken in the evening and night. The dream-like pictures taken with limited available light in evening or indoor settings paint a picture of Chicago that is quite different from those shot during the day. Soft illuminations and the vague lights of cars in the streets; and after dark, inhabitants of an entirely different world, in the form of children dressed up for Halloween, and clubbers and dancers partying at Chicago’s famous night clubs. Visitors to the exhibition can relive all of these by way of original prints of photographs of the city as Ishimoto was observing it back then.