Ryuji Miyamoto "Unreal Shibuya"

This will be Miyamoto's third solo exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery and will feature approximately 30 works from his latest series, which captures the urban spaces of Shibuya, Tokyo, as they undergo large-scale redevelopment.

Miyamoto, who has long recorded the transformation of cities by photographing architectural spaces, has been documenting the changing face of Shibuya from 2020 to 2025.
This series brings together works that strikingly capture exposed structural elements such as concrete frames and steel beams laid bare during renovation, paired with street shots of the diverse people moving through Shibuya. The city's fabric, demolished and rebuilt each day, and the countless passersby who converge and disperse in overwhelming numbers, each with their own purpose, together reflect the current state of Shibuya as its flux and evolution continue at an unprecedented scale and speed.

The exhibition title "Unreal Shibuya" takes its name from "Unreal City," a line in The Waste Land, the long poem known as T. S. Eliot's masterpiece. The "unreal" Shibuya formed by the clamor of crowds, towering advertisements, and construction sites is captured in Miyamoto's photographs and frozen as a series of static images. In doing so, the works open up a dimension distinct from the direct experience of the city, in which Shibuya oscillates in ever-changing ways between "real" and "unreal."

Photo：Ryuji Miyamoto, "Unreal Shibuya", 2025 © Miyamoto Ryuji  / Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film