How much of a face truly belongs to the person?

KIM YEONG JUN × YOSHIDA YUNI PHOTO EXHIBITION “Face to face”, the first collaboration between Korean photographer Kim Yeongjun and Japanese art director Yoshida Yuni, is on view at Azabudai Hills Gallery in Tokyo from April 29 to May 28, 2026.

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Featuring 62 actors from Japan and South Korea—each presented in two newly created works, for a total of 124 pieces—the exhibition explores what it describes as “the most essential form of human beauty.” In everyday life, we tend to read portrait photography as a means of capturing a person. This exhibition, however, quietly shifts that assumption.

Reconstructing the Face — 62 Actors, 124 Works

This exhibition marks the first collaboration between Kim Yeongjun and Yoshida Yuni. Bringing together actors active across film, television, and theater, it presents 124 newly produced works—two for each of the 62 participants.

Names such as Masami Nagasawa, Suzu Hirose, Nana Komatsu, Joe Odagiri, Kentaro Sakaguchi, Lee Byung-hun, Song Hye-kyo, Park Hyung-sik, Ju Ji-hoon, and Kim Da-mi reflect a cross-section of contemporary Asian cinema and performance. Yet what defines this exhibition is not its scale or star power.

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Between Photography and Art Direction

What is presented here goes beyond portraiture.

Kim Yeongjun’s practice is rooted in capturing fleeting expressions—moments that exist only for an instant. Yoshida Yuni, by contrast, is known for constructing images, carefully designing visual compositions that reshape perception.

One observes. The other constructs.

Where these two approaches intersect, photography shifts—from something that records to something that is assembled.

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“Flowers” as a Device

The exhibition takes “the most essential form of human beauty” as its theme, using flowers as a central motif.

Here, however, flowers are not decorative. They function as devices—tools that reveal, obscure, or fragment the face. By covering, isolating, or emphasizing certain features, they reconstruct the image itself.

Rather than simply looking at a face, we begin to see how a face is formed.

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The Tension of Time — A Process in Contrast

Underlying the exhibition is a fundamental difference in process.

Yoshida Yuni builds each image over an extended period, carefully constructing every element. Kim Yeongjun, in contrast, works within a brief moment, capturing an image through the act of shooting. This contrast in time becomes a visible tension within the works.

Calculated structure meets accidental moment. At their intersection, portraiture evolves into something layered—an image shaped by multiple temporalities rather than a single instant.

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The Experience of “Face to Face”

The exhibition’s title, “Face to face,” suggests more than a literal encounter.

In an age where portraits are often consumed through smartphone screens, this exhibition restores the act of physically confronting an image. Presented at a larger scale, the works reveal subtle details—shifts in gaze, texture, and presence—that are easily overlooked in digital formats.

In doing so, the exhibition reframes the act of looking itself.

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Space as Structure

At Azabudai Hills Gallery, the exhibition space is designed to foreground each image with clarity, while subtly incorporating elements used during the shoots.

This allows viewers to engage not only with the finished images, but also with the processes and structures behind them.

The space does not simply display the works—it reveals how they are constructed.

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Toward a Constructed Face

What emerges from this exhibition is the idea that portraiture does not necessarily capture an individual as they are.

It is a relationship. A structure. An interpretation.

A face, perhaps, is not something given—but something composed.

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