Taro Hirano is a photographer, gallery owner, skateboarder and bike rider living in Tokyo. In November last year he had his first solo show outside Japan at Tortoise Gallery in LA, showing work from his first book Pool (Littlemore). A collection landscape style pool photography which was in some ways a pilgrimage by Taro to the West Coast. He apparently believed pool skating was a thing of the past until he met a modern day pool skater which changed his view entirely, taking Taro along on some of his Cessna flights to locate newly abandoned and available pools.

As well as founding Japanese skate magazine SB, Taro also runs No.12 Gallery together with his wife Hina in a peaceful area of Tokyo, between Shibuya and Shimotitazawa (his darkroom is on the top floor). Its a small gallery, supporting friends and artists from all over the world, providing them with a base for interaction and growth outside the confines of Tokyo’s expensive gallery system. Over the last few years foreign artists have included Rick Myers, Kim Hiorthøy, Peter Kienzle and Ari Marcopoulos, together with fellow mumblers Jai Tanju and Mark Whiteley who had a show together with Jerry Hsu.

Japanese artists have been exhibiting since 2004, with work covering photography, ceramics, hair sculpture and a large amount of skate related shows including a series of boards sculpted from marble. There was also a collaborative show with Nieves, the Zurich based publisher called Zine Library which filled the space with all Nieves’ published releases to date. They’ve just produced a small book together limited to 200 copies, Foreclosure which continues the work Taro started with Pool.