Exhibition Catalogue: Mari Katayama
Broken Heart is the accompanying catalogue to Mari Katayama’s 2019 solo exhibition at White Rainbow, London, her first solo exhibition in the UK. The publication brings together photographic and sculptural works produced between 2011 and 2017, tracing the development of Katayama’s deeply personal practice and her exploration of the body, identity, memory, vulnerability and physical difference.
The catalogue features essays by Keith Whittle and writer and critic Alice Butler, alongside a conversation between Katayama and Simon Baker, then Director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. Together, these contributions consider Katayama’s distinctive use of self-portraiture, sculpture, textiles and prosthetics, situating her work within wider questions surrounding the representation of the body, femininity, disability and identity.
The publication also includes installation photographs documenting Broken Heart at White Rainbow, providing a record of the exhibition and its carefully constructed environments.
Mari Katayama is an internationally recognised Japanese artist. Her work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Maison Européenne de la Photographie and the Venice Biennale. In 2019, Broken Heart at White Rainbow, London, marked her first solo exhibition in the UK. She has received the Mori Art Award Grand Prize (2026), Kimura Ihei Award (2020) and Higashikawa New Photographer Award (2019).
Her major exhibitions include Performer and Participant at Tate Modern, London (2023), Home Again at Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2021), the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2016), and Contemporary Japanese Photography vol. 14: Photographs of Innocence and of Experience at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2017). More recent presentations include Women in Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2025), Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest at South London Gallery (2025), and Flesh and Bones: The Art of Anatomy at ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2026).
Year: 2019
Artist: Mari Katayama
Curator: Keith Whittle
Exhibition: Broken Heart
Venue: White Rainbow, Fitzrovia, London
Country: United Kingdom
Exhibition Type: Solo exhibition
Publication: Accompanying catalogue featuring essays by Keith Whittle and Alice Butler, and a conversation with Simon Baker, and installation photographs.
Organised in cooperation with: rin art association, Gunma, Japan
Publication: Accompanying catalogue featuring essays by Keith Whittle and Alice Butler, a conversation with Simon Baker, and installation photographs.
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