Kensuke Koike, Shaking Up Portrait Art

No More No Less is, above all, a story of encounters, of a skilful trio united by a love of photography. At its origin was a photography student at Shanghai University in the 1980s. This individual, who fell into obscurity, kept a book of black-and-white photographic studio portraits of anonymous subjects, accompanied by original negatives and annotated by their professor.

Next comes Thomas Sauvin, a specialist in contemporary Chinese photography who acquired this book in 2015, saving it from being destroyed in a recycling plant in the suburbs of Beijing. The final link in this creative chain is Kensuke Koike, a Japanese artist and collage master based in Venice. 

Reinventing the portrait without additions or subtractions

Koike and Sauvin thus decided to launch the No More No Less project: new silver prints, created from the original negatives found in the album, went under Kensuke Koike‘s scalpel. The Japanese artist, with his blade and adhesive roller, cut, deconstructed, and reinvented the images, with one imperative: that nothing be added to or taken away from the photo taken by the Chinese student.

The result is a photographic series with new outlines and shaken-up geometry that gives a new identity to the anonymous individuals captured on film and leads the public to ponder the many possibilities hidden behind a simple portrait. This fascinating work based on cutting and reassembling has been documented by the Japanese artist, notably in video on his Instagram account. 

No More No Less (2019) by Kensuke Koike and Thomas Sauvin, is published by The (M) Editions.