Loosening the Gaze: Marte Aas, “Vertical Shift”

Marte Aas, Vertical Shift
Multipress, 2025

Last December, IACK organised an exhibition featuring Norwegian photographer Line Børmer Løkken and video artist/photographer Marte Aas.

Alongside their artistic practices, Line and Marte run an independent publishing house called Multipress. They were one of the very first publishers I contacted after launching IACK. It was more than eight years ago now. At the time, Marte’s work was included in an artist book exhibition in which my own photobook had also been curated. Until then, I had only sourced books from people with whom I already had some kind of relationship, yet I was so drawn to the uniqueness of their bookmaking that I decided to contact them directly.

Because of geographical distance, it is rare to meet the publishers we work with in person. Yet strangely enough, even through email correspondence alone, one can sense a person’s character. Publishers with whom I have maintained long-term exchanges often turn out to be people whose sensibilities resonate not only with the work itself but also on a personal level. Three years ago, when I held a signing for my photobook at a book fair in Paris, timed with its publication, I finally had the chance to meet them in person. They were incredibly warm people, to the point that the generational difference between us—nearly twenty years—did not feel significant at all.

Installation shot from the exhibiton "Opacities" at IACK, December 2025

This introduction has become rather lengthy, but through this background, and also because they have begun participating in the Tokyo Art Book Fair in recent years, the idea naturally emerged: “Next time, let’s organise something in Kanazawa.” Since we had already held a publisher-focused project seven years earlier, we decided this time to present an exhibition of the two artists themselves. Line would show “Dry Eye Dripping Stone”, a work that was also featured in 1BOOKs last year, while Marte would present a new work scheduled for publication in November.

The book introduced here is Marte’s new publication, “Vertical Shift”, whose installation in the exhibition also left a strong impression.

Composed of a series of photographs depicting various landscapes—both artificial and natural—the work explores the themes of “ambiguous viewpoints” and “directionality”. By deliberately excluding clear markers of time and place at the moment of shooting, the photographs appear almost like archival images—suspended pictures whose meanings have been detached from their original contexts.

Spread from "Vertical Shift"

Quite literally, the photographs are rotated and laid out in different orientations—up, down, left, and right. As if adjusting the focus of a camera, the viewer must constantly refocus their own eyes while engaging with the images. What this work attempts is the proposal of a more fluid way of seeing the world. Borrowing the artist’s own words, it points toward “another possible way of being in the world”—that is, a set of narratives that are multiple and unexpected.

Looking through this book, one begins to feel their fixed viewpoint gradually loosen. At some point, the shoulders begin to relax. Photography must be like this. Things must be like this. When we continue along a certain path for a long time, these ideas gradually shape us without our noticing. One might also call these ideas a form of ideology or style.

Yet at times we must pause, look back at things, and reconsider our own position. In that sense, this book feels particularly fitting for the beginning of a year. Through this visual experience, “Vertical Shift” gently invites the reader to reconsider how they look at the world.

Essay by Yukihito Kono (5 March, 2026)
Originally written for 1BOOKs at CANDLE CAFE & Laboratory ∆II, January 2026

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Title: Vertical Shift
Artist: Marte Aas
Publisher: Multipress, 2025
Format: Softcover booklet with elastic band
Size: 210 x 290 mm
Pages: 80
Printing: Offset print
Language: n/a
Edition: Limited edition of 250 copies, signed by the artist
ISBN: 978-82-92224-69-4

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