New Trends in Japanese Photography

edited by Filippo Maggia Cover First published in Italy in 2016 by Catalogue Acknowledgements Photograph by Skira editore S.p.A. Maiko Haruki Edited by Lieko Shiga Palazzo Casati Stampa Naoki Ishikawa Filippo Maggia via Torino 61 Tomoko Kikuchi Art Director 20123 Milano Texts by Toshiya Murakoshi Marcello Francone Italy Filippo Maggia Yurie Nagashima www.skira.net Michiko Kasahara Sohei Nishino Design Koji Onaka Luigi Fiore © 2016 the artists for their photographs Yuki Onodera © 2016 the authors for their texts Editorial Coordination Chino Otsuka © 2016 Skira editore, Milano Eva Vanzella Tomoko Sawada All rights reserved under international Lieko Shiga Copy Editor copyright conventions. Risaku Suzuki Valeria Perenze No part of this book may be reproduced Ryoko Suzuki Translations or utilized in any form or by any Chikako Yamashiro Susan Ann White and Barbara Venturi means, electronic or mechanical, and on behalf of Scriptum, Rome including photocopying, recording, or Yumiko Chiba, Yumiko Chiba Gavin Frew (text on p. 38) any information storage and retrieval Associates, Tokyo system, without permission in writing Katsuya Ishida, Mem Gallery, Tokyo from the publisher. Takahiro Ito, TOP Museum, Tokyo Printed and bound in Italy. First edition Aya Kato ISBN: 978-88-572-3279-9 Maho Kubota, Maho Kubota Gallery, (International trade) Tokyo ISBN: 978-88-572-3429-8 Aki Lumi (Italian trade) Takako Matsuda Miho Odaka Distributed in USA, Canada, Central Marie Okamura, Taka Ishi Gallery, Tokyo & South America by Rizzoli International Shino Ozawa, Taro Nasu Gallery, Tokyo Publications, Inc., 300 Park Avenue Takashi Suzuki, Yumiko Chiba South, New York, NY 10010, USA. Associates, Tokyo Distributed elsewhere in the world by Elisa Uematsu, Taka Ishi Gallery, Tokyo Thames and Hudson Ltd., 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX, Special thanks go to United Kingdom. His Excellency Umemoto Kazuyoshi, Ambassador of Japan to Italy and to Michiko Kasahara, Chief Curator, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum for their invaluable collaboration Contents

10 Un certain regard Filippo Maggia

12 Contemporary Japanese Photography Michiko Kasahara

18 Maiko Haruki 28 Naoki Ishikawa 38 Tomoko Kikuchi 50 Toshiya Murakoshi 60 Yurie Nagashima 72 Sohei Nishino 80 Koji Onaka 88 Yuki Onodera 98 Chino Otsuka 110 Tomoko Sawada 120 Lieko Shiga 132 Risaku Suzuki 142 Ryoko Suzuki 152 Chikako Yamashiro

158 Biographies 2000–2016

169 Testi in italiano Contents

10 Un certain regard Filippo Maggia

12 Contemporary Japanese Photography Michiko Kasahara

158 Biographies 2000–2016 Filippo Maggia Un certain regard

I went to Japan for the first time about Rising Sun, where they would “discover” twenty years ago, to prepare an exhibition on Ryuji Miyamoto, Naoya Hatakeyama, Toshio Japanese photography at the Galleria Civica in Shibata, Taiji Matsue and many others. Modena,1 and I was amazed to find that there As the curator Michiko Kasahara writes were many excellent photographers who were in her essay, this dearth of information either unknown or little known in Italy and derives mainly from the fact that at the time the rest of Europe. At the end of the 1980s, photography in Japan did not yet enjoy Daido Moriyama’s photographs had appeared the public or private support necessary for its in Europe about a decade previously. They promotion abroad. In the following decades would be followed by Nobuyoshi Araki’s we were able to become more familiar “scandalous” images in the early 1990s, with the images of Japanese photographers, thanks to the invaluable scouting carried out thanks to the work done by international by the magazine Camera Austria,2 which curators (I would mention, in this regard, always had its finger on the pulse, and its the retrospective organized by the San editor and photographer Seiichi Furuya, Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2006, who followed Japanese photography. which revealed Shomei Tomatsu’s artistic At this time, Hiroshi Sugimoto had already prowess to the world),3 Japanese and foreign been living in New York for several years and critics, a new generation of gallerists and the was considered a fully fledged contemporary photographers themselves. And now we are artist; he was also well-established in the able to see how this important school has art system and represented by an important evolved and established itself as one of the international gallery like Sonnabend. most interesting on the contemporary scene. Yasumasa Morimura was also making This volume does not claim to be exhaustive, a name for himself abroad, before making but rather aims to provide a complete it in Japan. Eikoh Hosoe, Ken Domon and picture of the Japanese photographic milieu Kenro Izu completed the handful of Japanese during a major point of transition between photographers with whose work we were the generation of masters—the pioneer familiar. Except for those in Paris, to which Miyako Ishiuchi’s 4 name should be added various Japanese artists, such as Keiichi Tahara to the photographers mentioned above— and Jun Shiraoka, had already gravitated, and the current one. Fundamental to the and New York, where Kunié Sugiura resided, selection process through which the featured along with Izu and Sugimoto, people who authors were chosen was the collaboration wished to explore Japanese photography offered by those in Japan who work in the had no choice but to go to the Land of the photographic field, thanks to whom we have

10 been able to get in touch with artists who rather the need to take on a scene that is 1 Uno Sguardo sul Giappone, Modena per la Fotografia would have been very difficult to contact more complex than their own world—unlike 1999, Galleria Civica di Modena, curated by Filippo Maggia otherwise, especially due to the language Araki, or Morimura, who have both set their with the collaboration of Walter Guadagnini. 2 Daido Moriyama’s photographs appeared in the second problem. As a privileged observatory, the work against the backdrop of Japanese issue of Camera Austria, 1980. The volume Nobuyoshi Tokyo Photographic Art Museum was an “theatre”, understood as the refined blend Araki, Akt Tokyo was published by Camera Austria in 1992. indispensable point of reference, due mainly of tradition, life style and modernity typical 3 The Shomei Tomatsu retrospective, Skin of a Nation, to the democratic and open-minded attitude of Japan. However, this need is experienced promoted by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, it has always adopted towards Japanese profoundly by each of these artists, and was curated by Leo Rubinfien, Sandra S. Phillips and John photography,5 embracing everything from regularly manifests in their work, in both W. Dower, and travelled between 2004 and 2006. 4 traditional reportage to cutting-edge the planning and the formal rigour that Miyako Ishiuki, Mother’s 2000-2005 – Traces of Future, curated by Michiko Kasahara, 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, multimedia trends. distinguishes their images. Japanese Pavilion. Within the broad spectrum of approaches Seen from the outside, the contemporary 5 Since the early 2000s, the Tokyo Photographic Art and modus operandi, we sought to identify Japanese scene is remarkably complex, Museum has regularly organized thematic group exhibitions those artists whose works represent the extremely varied, and even enticing. The fact featuring four or five photographers, under vitality and fluidity of current research, that it is impossible to define one or more the title Contemporary Japanese Photography. while at the same time including various trends is extremely positive: there are so many 6 The ages of the artists featured in this volume range authors who, while adopting quite different different fields of research, all explored with from 36, namely Toshiya Murakoshi and Lieko Shiga, to 55, Koji Onaka. methodologies, attest to the generational equal intensity and with an originality that handover. Western photography so often lacks. And this One characteristic that significantly is another characteristic that makes Japanese distinguishes today’s Japanese photographers images unique. The photographers are able to between 35 and 556 from their European distance themselves from the weighty legacy and American counterparts is the need of the masters and take up issues related to to leave their homeland, which is more the changes underway in contemporary society, than evident. It is partly due to a still weak addressing them in limpid works that can be domestic market system (the galleries formally classic yet incisive, raw and essential. themselves operate mainly in the Western This is a generation of artists who are rather than national market), but is mainly proceeding in open order and still lack the seen as a means of gaining firsthand appropriate support, but are aware of their experience, which is indispensable, individual skills. They are also able to appeal to people’s and, in a certain sense, self-sufficient, sensitivity across the board, especially that that is without claiming to be universal. of the critics and Western public, who In other words, their choice is not informed seem to have been dulled by redundant by a desire to succeed or to emerge but aestheticism for years.

11 Michiko Kasahara Contemporary Japanese Photography

Chief curator of the Tokyo This book contains a series of works selected work goes up, and it is purchased by public Photographic Art Museum by Filippo Maggia and myself. While there collections. After ten or twenty years they are can be no doubt that the selected artists are finally given a solo exhibition. In the majority representative of the Japanese panorama, of cases, this is the path taken by many artists. the aim of this book is not that of giving Nevertheless, in the case of Japanese an exhaustive account of contemporary photographers this kind of mechanism—and photography in Japan, which now has such context—has been lacking for a long time. a diverse range of expressive methods, Only in recent years, in the eighties and subjects, styles and media that it would be nineties, has this sort of career path become impossible to contain it in just one book. an option, albeit a somewhat restricted one, The photographs reproduced here do offer for them. a glimpse of the enormous variety, but the If artists are to be able to live on the creation fact that they are “representative of Japanese and sale of their own work, galleries are photography” was not the only reason for necessary; a market where collectors and choosing these particular photographers. museums can purchase the works is In this short essay, explaining our selection indispensable for the survival of galleries; criteria, I would like to foster an understanding the selection and purchase of works of art of the authors presented here and of Japanese demands knowledge and specialized photography in general, analyzing how both evaluation skills based on a strong theoretical the content and the conditions around it have background; finally, specialists—critics, evolved from the 1990s to the present. historians of photography or curators—would I would also like to mention its relationship be lost without the universities. to international photography and its particular The first Japanese galleries to treat Japanese characteristics. photography as an art object were the Zeit- Foto Salon and Photo Gallery International, The place of photographers which opened in 1978 and 1979 respectively. Photographers produce their work, exhibit it In the eighties, well-regarded photographers in galleries and then sell it. If they repeat this both in Japan and abroad started to appear; process for a few years, they attract the names such as Hiroshi Sugimoto and attention of a few critics and museum curators Yasumasa Morimura, followed shortly after who invite them to take part in a group by Naoya Hatakeyama and Toshio Shibata, or an international exhibition. Depending whose works also acquired a market value. on the situation, this may also yield awards All these photographers have a clear for photography or invitations to take part awareness of the global market, for which in competitions. The value and price of their they produce work conceived as unique one-

12 off objects. They are therefore very different to open up and photography began to be The change in female consciousness from the Japanese photographers of the used in a freer way. Later on, in the eighties, The greatest transformation to occur in Japan post-war period such as Yasuhiro Ishimoto, photography and contemporary art did in recent decades, and not only in the world the VIVO collective (Shomei Tomatsu, Eiko coincide under the banner of “postmodernism of photography, concerns female Hosoe, Kikuji Kawada, Akira Sato, Akira of resistance”.1 The arrival on the scene of consciousness. The growing number of women Tanno, Ikko Narahara), the photographers mixed media work, such as video, computers, who decide to go to university2 or to enter at Provoke magazine (Takuma Nakahira, installations, etc., brings us up to the present. the world of work3 is an obvious indication Yutaka Takanashi, Koji Taki, Takahiko Okada, If we consider Hiroshi Sugimoto and Yasumasa of a growing mood of self-determination Daido Moriyama), Nobuyoshi Araki and Morimura as the first generation of these among Japanese women, whether that is Miyako Ishiuchi. These photographers, at least artists, Risaku Suzuki, Yuki Onodera, Koji to continue with their studies or find a job, early on in their careers, saw publication Onaka and the others included in this book to marry or stay single, to have children or not. in photographic albums or magazines represent the second generation. They started At least until the eighties, it was taboo to think as the final destination of their work. to develop their careers in the eighties of adolescent girls, elderly women or women Fifty years behind the United States, in the and went on to consolidate their reputations who live alone as having bodies equipped with second half of the eighties, exhibitions started in the nineties. Although there is a gap their own sexuality, but diversification in sexual to be held and collections created under between Japan and the other countries with orientation has helped bring a greater the supervision of specialized curators also regard to the development of a frame of awareness of issues to do with individual taste in Japanese museums: photography was being reference for contemporary photography, and individual rights. It is, however, still the treated as a branch of art. Following a Japanese artists are aware that they are not case that the social system, as well as the temporary opening in 1990, the Tokyo totally isolated from the rest of the world. mindset of powerful men, which keeps the Photographic Art Museum, for which I work, Yuki Onodera, who moved to Paris in 1993, wheels turning, have remained unchanged. finally opened its doors permanently in 1995. creates her highly original works using The index of the gap between the genders,4 experimental methods. Risaku Suzuki chooses as a measure of inequality between men and What can one do with photography simple subjects such as “snow”, “cherry women, ranks Japan as 101 out of 145 In the seventies, modernism underwent blossom”, “the Kumano Sanctuary”, countries, particularly low compared with reappraisal throughout the world: there was “Cézanne”; his main focus is on sight as its nominal GDP (Gross Domestic Product) a shift away from formalism linked to the a sensory channel of photography. Koji Onaka for the same year (2015), for which it is aesthetics of “photography for photography’s has his own independent gallery and he ranked third in the world. Although, as we sake” and there was some experimentation collects photos of quotidian normality on his said, female employment has increased, more through work that sought to answer travels through Japan. While quite different in than half of the increase is due to part-time the question of what the semantic content terms of both the place where they work and workers;5 moreover, there is a big difference of photography should be. Having abandoned the style they have adopted, these three artists between the salaries of men and women,6 and the obsessive pursuit of technical perfection do share a certain way of seeing that makes the percentage of women who stop working and formal beauty, as well as self- them keep asking “what is photography?” to look after their children is in any case high. representation, the expressive potential began or “what can I do with photography?”. The average amount of time spent by

13 Japanese men on domestic chores and with in this book the only one to have received herself and the world making connections their children is very low compared to the rest this prize is Risaku Suzuki (2000), while between history and memory, first through of the world,7 therefore, even if a woman among the women artists are: Yurie writing based on letters between her and her decides to continue working after marriage Nagashima (2001), Yuki Onodera (2003), parents, and then, in later years, through and children, she has to be prepared to take Tomoko Sawada (2004), Lieko Shiga (2008), photography. In contrast Ryoko Suzuki uses on the burden of the housework, looking after and Tomoko Kikuchi (2013). computer graphics to add to the image of her the children and often even care of the Themes common to these artists, as a result of own body elements such as silicone, mould, grandparents, on top of her work a new awareness among women, are how to etc., playing on an idea of distorted sexuality. commitments outside the home. As a result, define oneself as an independent subject and the average age for getting married is rising, look for individual subjectivity within society. From a personal perspective the number of women who out of necessity The first to be involved in this change are the to a collective imagination or from choice decide not to marry is on the people closest to the artists, their family. The tendency common to all the artists in this increase, the number of marriages is falling,8 In Japanese society, where the patriarchal view book, not only those who connect everything and women are choosing not to have children: of the family is still to be found, it is only to the theme of the family, the image of the fertility rate, which has always been low, natural that friction and clashes will occur. women or sexuality, is to create works based dropped to 1.43 in 2013.9 For more than ten Yurie Nagashima, who exhibited her first on an awareness of issues they have personally years now the low birth rate and an ageing photo (a shocking nude portrait of her with experienced. population have been considered the most her family in 1993) while still a student, is In the past, a number of photographers have serious problem in Japanese society, albeit constant in her exploration of the essence tackled major social issues, generally one without, as yet, a clear solution. of the family and of women, including women considered quite distant from strictly personal Changing attitudes first became evident in from the past. problems. Looking back over the history of the art world. Since the nineties, the number A similar degree of continuity is to be found photography, against the backdrop of the of exhibitions on gender-related themes10 in the work of Tomoko Sawada, who started mid-sixties and seventies, we find the has been on the rise, accompanied by an making photographic portraits at university. experimental work by the group included exponential increase in the number of female With ID400 in 1998, a series of 400 passport- in the New Documents exhibition—Arbus, artists. Take, for example, the Ihei Kimura size photos in which she dresses up differently Winogrand, and Friedlander, influenced by Award, considered a springboard for young in each one, Sawada personally interprets Robert Frank and his focus on America—while Japanese photographers. Among the 51 the different roles the women of her in Japan we find the birth of the “Konpora photographers who have won the award, generation find themselves undertaking, photo” of Nobuyoshi Araki, Shigeo Gocho since 1975 when the award was set up, thus exploring the ways in which societies and others. These were followed in the have been 14 women, but apart from impose precise roles on them. eighties by photographers whose work could Miyako Ishiuchi (1979), Hana Takeda (1989) Chino Otsuka left primary school of her own be described as “private documentaries”, and Michiko Kon (1990), the others have accord at the age of 10 and after moving such as Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans. all been awarded since 2000. to England on her own in 1982, transposed Photojournalism and conventional Incidentally, among the male artists mentioned to her own work the relationship between documentaries, which had been very much

14 to the fore until then, were based photographs while at university, in 2006, the European Union and the birth of new on ingenuous faith in this mechanical eye and since then he has continued to states, various areas of the world have been that seemed to be endowed with objectivity, photograph the region he is from, Fukushima, locked in bloody territorial, religious and and produced images that tended to represent in images permeated with a detached sense ethnic conflicts, such as the civil wars in every single person from the point of view of calm: vast landscapes of sparsely populated Yugoslavia, in the Congo and in Afghanistan of a third party. The very essence of this type countryside, of which there are many in Japan. or the massacre in Rwanda. of photography was by this stage on the way Following the earthquake in 2011 and the The market economy has also penetrated to losing its impact. nuclear accident, these areas were classified socialist countries such as China and free- In the series I and I, Tomoko Kikuchi, as “disaster areas”. In spite of this Murakoshi’s market economics have conquered the world. a photographer who lives in Beijing, portrays photography has not changed at all: Driven by the development of digital drag queens who live in the underbelly he continues unfazed to photograph communication technologies, finance of a society undergoing frenetic change, with characteristic tranquillity his native and information have become volatile and but the chance to begin this project came land of Fukushima. are exchanged beyond national borders. from Kikuchi’s personal relationship with some While on one hand these artists combine The terrorist attack on the twin towers raised of these drag queens. Sometimes sharing their the techniques of more orthodox documentary the curtain on a 21st-century stage on which flats, or invited into their most private spaces, photography, of straight photography and the whole world finds itself facing great Kikuchi takes photos of these women at very landscape photography, on the other, they and gravely critical situations: from the war in close quarters, women involved in a very persevere in posing their own questions, based Afghanistan to the conflict in Iraq, the Lehman physical struggle with their own sexuality. on a personal perspective but without ever Brothers crash, the Arab spring and the civil Naoki Ishikawa, who in senior high school adopting an attitude of superiority over the war in Syria, the birth of ISIS, terrorist attacks had already travelled alone to India and Nepal, subject. This personal dimension renders their in various parts of the world, the Greek walked from the North Pole to the South Pole testimony more sincere and gives rise to work economic crisis, growing inequality, poverty, in 2000, and the year after he climbed the that can take the observer to a place refugees, discrimination, global warming, Seven Summits (the seven highest summits of universal imagination closer to the heart populations in expansion, energy problems, in each of the seven continents). He continues of the question. rising rates of racist crime and so on. to walk ceaselessly around Japan and the It is as if these young artists, relying on their world, showing new work wherever he goes. Rebuilding a world in pieces own bodies and looking with new eyes from In contrast to the breath-taking panoramas In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, the where they happen to be, are fiercely typical of nature photography, at the heart Cold War ended, and East and West Germany committed to trying to rebuild the world of Ishikawa’s photos lies the concept became one country again: the Socialist itself—a world that is gradually becoming of displacement. For example, when he regimes of eastern Europe and the Soviet more virtual, with an abundance photographs his own footsteps on the ground, Union fell apart. At the time, everyone of information and increasingly diverse he formalizes his personal relationship expected the transition from the Communist value systems. with the earth. period to a new multi-polar system, and What Chikako Yamashiro expresses through Toshiya Murakoshi also started taking although today we see the expansion of photos and film is the place where she was

15 born, grew up and currently lives, Okinawa. but is not individualistic. Young Japanese of the life of citizens” published by the Ministry Often superimposing her own body against people are often criticized for their introverted of Health, Work and Welfare, 21% of men and 57% a background of the traditions and history attitudes. But, on the contrary, these artists of women have temporary employment contracts. 6 According to the “Report on Gender Differences” of her land, she interweaves the threads are open to others, to society, to the world, published by the OECD, in 2013, there was a difference of the absurd situation in which Okinawa finds in order to better observe themselves. This of 27% in Japanese salaries, the third highest among itself today, mixing reality and fiction in way of relativizing one’s ego, takes us in the OECD countries. a highly poetic way. direction of a universal imagination. They each 7 According to the “Report on Gender Differences” Lieko Shiga, who went to live in the remote have their own logic, a flexible way of seeing: by the OECD, Japanese men spend 62 minutes per day on village of Kitakama in Tohoku region, has a characteristic they have in common and that domestic chores, less than half the average of 139 minutes managed with the help of the local people allows them to view society with detachment. for all 26 countries, placing Japan in third last place. 8 According to the “Report on measures to remedy the to construct an extraordinary epic poem falling birth rate, 2015” by the Council of Ministers, since depicting the memory and history of the the peak number of marriages in 1972, the number region, as well as a description of everyday life dropped steadily to a new low in 2013. The average age 1 half-way between life and death. While Hal Foster, “The Postmodernism: A Preface”, in Anti- at which people embark on their first marriage was 27.8 creating this work, the village of Kitakama Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, Bay Press, 1983, for men and 25.2 for women in 1980, while in 2013 it was was swept away by the tsunami on 11 March pp. xi-xii. 30.9 for men and 29.3 for women. In addition, marriage 2 According to statistics published by the Ministry of 2011, but this did not stop Shiga’s work. among the elderly is becoming more popular. Education, in 1980, 12.3% of women enrolled in four-year 9 Data from the “Report on measures to remedy the falling Sohei Nishino walks the streets of the world’s university degree courses (against 39.3% of men), in 1990, birth rate, 2015” by the Council of Ministers: the birth rate metropolises: Tokyo, Paris, Johannesburg, it was 15.2% (against 33.4% of men), in 2000, 31.5% in Japan has dropped to a lower rate than in western Havana… He spends one or two months (against 47.5% of men) and in 2013, 45.6% (against 54% countries; it was 2.14 during the boom years of 1971–74, in a city, exploring every corner of it on foot, of men). dropping to 1.57 in 1989, and reached the lowest rate of 3 meeting the people who live there, taking According to a study of the workforce carried out by the 1.26 in 2005, before slightly increasing to 1.43 in 2013. thousands and thousands of photos, which Ministry of the Interior, the number of female workers was 10 Some of the principal exhibitions having gender as their 21,420,000 in 1980; 25,360,000 in 1990; 26,290,000 in he then, in a very laborious process, main theme include: Exploring the Unknown Self: 2000; and 26,540,000 in 2012. Self-Portraits of Contemporary Women (Tokyo Metropolitan reassembles as a collage. 4 In November 2015, the World Economic Forum published Museum of Photography, 1991), Gender, beyond memory While Nishino’s photos can be seen as the “Global Gender Gap Report 2015”, containing the (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1996), enormous scrolls illustrating his personal Gender Gap Index (GGI) between men and women by De-Genderism – Detruire Dit Elle (Setagaya Art Museum, experience of the city, Maiko Haruki, in country. Composed of a combination of four measures 1997), Floating images of women in art history: from contrast, creates a world out of sync, abruptly regarding the economy, education, politics and health, an the birth of feminism toward the dissolution of the gender cutting away the quotidian spaces we usually index of 0 indicates total discrimination, while an index of (Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, 1997), Mito 1 indicates perfect gender parity. Japan’s position in 2015 see with our eyes. The dark hollows that cover Annual ’97 – Flexible Coexistence (Art Tower Mito, 1997), was 101 out of 145 countries (in 2014 it was in 104th his images, and that are his distinctive mark, Love’s body – Naked and Nude in Photography place out of 142 countries) (The Gender Equality Bureau (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1998). appear to be a metaphor of the modern world. http://www.gender.go.jp/public/kyodosankaku/ 2015/ The work by the photographers in this book is 201601/201601_03.html). underpinned by their individual perspectives, 5 According to the “General overview of the basic survey

16 Maiko Haruki Naoki Ishikawa Tomoko Kikuchi Toshiya Murakoshi Yurie Nagashima Sohei Nishino Koji Onaka Yuki Onodera Chino Otsuka Tomoko Sawada Lieko Shiga Risaku Suzuki Ryoko Suzuki Chikako Yamashiro Maiko Haruki

It goes without saying that imagination and its limits change with each individual. I aim for a freer synergy between seeing and shooting: my works are an expression of the empty space, conceived as an invitation to the viewer to enter the place where imagination can rove freely. Why not try to explore the differences and limits of each person’s imagination through the possibilities of photography?

18 A certain composition of eyes 01, 2014 C-print

19 A certain composition of eyes 02, 2014 C-print

20 A certain composition of eyes 05, 2014 C-print

21 A certain composition of eyes 04, 2014 C-print

22 A certain composition of eyes 06, 2014 C-print

23 A certain composition of eyes 08, 2016 C-print

24 A certain composition of eyes 03, 2014 C-print

A certain composition of eyes 07, 2014 C-print

27 Naoki Ishikawa

“When I learn about its details, a forest and culture. Here his photographs exemplify is no longer simply a forest, and becomes or visualize something invisible, such as cultural something I know personally as existing in analogies that exist beyond geographical the world.” These words exemplify what this borders. photographer—who is also a climber of the Likewise, in the series Archipelago (2009) and world’s highest peaks, an intrepid traveller and CORONA (2010), Ishikawa attempts to capture an explorer—aims to achieve through his lenses “invisible” countries and continents: the chains and actions. If we look at a forest from afar, of islands scattered to the north and south it is little more than a beautiful but nondescript of Japan in the former, and the Polynesian landscape. But by entering the forest on foot triangle in the South Pacific in the latter. and coming into contact with the countless The two series took over ten years to complete. things living and breathing among the trees, In his most recent projects, Ishikawa endeavors Ishikawa rediscovers the forest as a sum to illustrate the Himalayan culture as a whole, of interweaving parts. The “forest” could be by climbing famous peaks and immersing anything—a mountain, a certain region, himself in the life and culture of the people, an archipelago. The artist constantly reconsiders such as the Sherpas, whose lives are closely and reorganizes the conventional idea intertwined with the mountains. of the map and mapping. This is why In investigating a simple map or an area’s he travels, exploring the details through geography, Ishikawa revolutionizes perspective, his camera and forming them into a whole transforming the familiar and the inner into the through his books and exhibitions. alien and the outer. A vivid “forest” reemerges One of his earlier but more representative through his compiled images with their wealth works, a series entitled Polar (an eponymous of anthropological and historical connotations. book was published in 2007), was shot in the Arctic Circle, the region encompassing Aya Kato, curator, Setagata Art Museum the northernmost part of North America, Siberia, Scandinavia and Greenland. Ishikawa ventured into several areas of the region that are now officially divided by national borders, entering into the daily lives of its inhabitants and discovering a deeper, shared history

28 Polar, 2007 C-print

29 Polar, 2007 C-print

30 Polar, 2007 Polar, 2007 C-print C-print

31 Polar, 2007 C-print

32 Polar, 2007 Polar, 2007 C-print C-print

33 Mt. Fuji, 2008 C-print

34 Mt. Fuji, 2008 Mt. Fuji, 2008 C-print C-print

35 Mt. Fuji, 2008 C-print

36 Mt. Fuji, 2008 Mt. Fuji, 2008 C-print C-print

37 Tomoko Kikuchi

The River surface of their waters and their surroundings, It was a friend, a drag queen who performs I found they reflected images at funerals, that first told me the story about of the concentration and darkness the fishermen on the Yangtze River who have of contemporary society, showing the true state taken to retrieving garbage and corpses of life that is common to both. from its waters. He told me that these Everywhere along these rivers I witnessed fishermen had become unable to carry out their people continually challenging the limits traditional occupation due to the ecological of nature, as if they tried to conquer it. destruction and water pollution brought about I felt that thousands of years of nature by the increase of hydropower plants and traditional culture had been wiped out and recently they have seen an increase in a little over a decade, modernization and in the number of suicides among the bodies economic development creating a fundamental they retrieved from the river. The destruction change in the way that people interact with the of nature; people who are reluctantly forced land, with nature and even with other people. to do things in order to survive and people Destruction of the environment without an awe who choose death as their lives have become of nature leads to the disintegration of our own meaningless—I wondered if this triangular lives and minds. Contemporary society’s fixation relationship would enable me to capture with economic development has resulted in the the light and shadow of life in contemporary establishment of social values based solely society, set against the background of one on money and power, forcing people of the world’s greatest rivers. to suppress and deaden various feelings in order From the spring to summer of 2013 I travelled to survive and get ahead. Morals, human dignity China from the west to east, south to north, and spirituality are depreciated, while emotions a trip of several thousand kilometers, during disappear from people’s expressions, leaving which I visited the cities and villages situated only impatience. Paradoxically, however, I feel I along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. These was able to glimpse a sense of “dignity” in the two great rivers are completely different in faces of people who had taken their own lives, appearance, but looking at the shimmering that has disappeared from those who still live.

38 39 40 41 42 43 I and I featured on TV throughout the country, It was New Year’s Eve in Beijing, 2005, when and it was from about this time that gay I happened to meet the drag queen, Meimei. bars started to be less of an underground Somehow we clicked instantly and she took me phenomenon. More and more queens came around gay bars in the city, leading me past out to be reconciled with their families, the “no entry” sign to the backstage area as society gradually changed. where the other queens were preparing for their performances. Everything started In 2008 I followed my friend, who left Beijing from that moment. for Chongqing, where she introduced me to numerous young queens, who are known In those days, the queens were shunned as the Post-85 (those born between 1985 and by mainstream society, spending their days 1989) and the Post-90s (those born after 1990) together in cheap basement apartments generation. Compared to the older generation, before coming out at night to make a living as these young queens find it easy to overcome dancers, singers and comedians in underground gender and transcend preconceived ideas gay bars. Many of them were so-called Beipiao concerning “sex”. They do not hesitate to go (Beijing drifters), who had fled their hometowns out in women’s clothing, they refuse to hide for Beijing in order to prevent their families their sexuality from their parents and can from learning about their identity disorder, be said to be the first generation to display but if they could not achieve success they had their identity openly. no alternative but to go home or become a prostitute. The competition was so fierce that The series I and I portrays these Chinese the queens found it difficult to establish close transgender performers and queens, from friendships with each other, and successful love the dark days when they lived an underground affairs were rare; they were cut off from family, existence through to when they began work, love and friendship, numbing their to discern a glimmer of light, depicting unexpressed emotions with alcohol and sex. the conflict that existed between their ideals and reality. After several years, the queens began to make “Gender” consciousness has been changing their presence known and gradually became with astonishing speed in China recently. accepted by society. My friend, who was My personal exploration of “gender” is still a queen, won a talent competition and was at the start line.

44 45 46 47 48 49 Toshiya Murakoshi

Toshiya Murakoshi has consistently turned the earthquake and nuclear disasters occurred, his gaze towards Japanese rural landscapes. I felt that I would no longer be able to shoot Since 2006, he has shot mainly his hometown as I had been doing,” Murakoshi commented. Fukushima, creating serene, yet powerful, “The earthquake destroyed streets and black-and-white landscape images that trace buildings, but the landscape remained virtually his memories of time spent in his hometown. unchanged. I knew, however, that many things In 2009, the artist’s grandmother died. had changed despite the apparent normality. The incident made him more aware Images produced in Fukushima from now on of the relationship between the act of taking would inevitably be accompanied photographs of his parents’ house by earthquake and nuclear power subtexts. and the memory of his family. “I noticed that At first I decided to shoot Fukushima I could feel her presence more strongly from as a disaster-stricken region, but it didn’t feel the photographs taken around my house than right. I kept on asking myself what I wanted those taken of her, of which I only had a few. to do. The answer did not come easily Memories will fade little by little from one’s and I decided to continue to shoot Fukushima mind, but I realized that the fragments for myself, as I had been doing. I wanted of memory etched into a little landscape where to see whatever appeared in front of me with I spent time with her will remain from now my own eyes, to shoot it, and think about it. on”, Murakoshi said. “The landscape which This entire process constitutes the photographic seemed nothing much to me before, has act. I didn’t need a reason to shoot become a beautiful memory now.” Just two my hometown after all.” years later, Murakoshi had to face another Rei Masuda, the curator of the National turning point: the Great East-Japan Earthquake Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, wrote of 2011. The disaster not only left an indelible of Murakoshi in the exhibition catalogue mark on the quake-stricken areas, but also Burn After Seeing (2014): “He repeatedly walks raised serious questions about established in familiar landscapes, photographs them and values and living practices. After presents them to us, for eliminating unwanted the earthquake, many artists visited noise from his photographic act, rather than the northeast region to produce a variety gaining certain meaning for it. He keeps doing of works that questioned their relationship that as if only through this concise simple way to society and posed questions that sparked can he discover the true potential numerous debates. Within this context, of photography”. Murakoshi is convinced Murakosh continued to carefully observe his that shooting his hometown is photography, hometown but distanced himself from the and he continues to capture the scenery above-mentioned artistic approaches. “When with his extraordinary sensibility.

50 A gradual thaw #001, 2016 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

51 A gradual thaw #002, 2016 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

52 Burn after Seeing #003, 2013 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

53 turn back the hands of time #006, 2009 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

54 timelessness #020, 2006 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

55 Prayer and Bark #001, 2011–12 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

56 calendula #018, 2009 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

57 until and unless #001, 2009 Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film

58 uncertain #011, 2004 RAINY DAYS #022, 2005 Gelatin silver print Gelatin silver print © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii © Toshiya Murakoshi / Courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film Gallery Photography / Film

59 Yurie Nagashima

My mother once told me that I was very actually living. For a long time, my eyes were passive when I was little. my camera, and my memories were my It wasn’t surprising to hear that because, negatives. Then, when I was nine, my from what I could remember of my childhood, grandmother gave me a broken point-and- I had the same impression about myself. shoot. That was my first camera, and I was In family albums I am hardly ever smiling as very excited. I literally pointed and shot all over a child. This was quite obvious when I compare my parent’s apartment. There was no film in it, my younger brother’s photographs with mine. but I didn’t care. Now I have a number I remember that I was too busy figuring out of cameras, but most of them are second-hand, what people expected me to do next. Despite given to me by someone. This may be the much anticipation from adults, I never had passive choice again, because a photographer anything I particularly wanted to do. Most should be using the best equipment to execute of the time, I was just there, watching things her masterpieces. like the ceiling of my grandmother’s living Although I wasn’t good at spontaneously room catching reflections of daylight coming finding what I wanted to do, I have always through the panes of the big window, or my been aware of what I didn’t want to do. loved ones showing various emotions on their I’ve always been good at running away from faces and in their voices as they lived their lives. whatever makes me feel unhappy. Some think I was fulfilled by concentrating on those tiny this is an unproductive attitude, but I believe details, because while I did so I felt no that it’s a valuable spontaneous action. emotions, and it felt good. Those were the And after so many passive choices, an outline moments that made me believe that I was of my desire would always emerge.

Installation Shot of grandma’s flower shots No. 1, 2007 C-print

60 61 62 R jumping onto my bed, 2007 Onion, 2005 C-print C-print

63 64 Plant with label #24, 2008 Brother and sister, 2014 C-print C-print

65 G on Kaarina’s bed, 2014 C-print

66 The kiss, 2011 C-print

67 Still life #4 (about home), 2015 C-print

68 Oak tree in Fiscars, 2014 C-print

The morning after Miyo’s wedding, 2015 C-print

71 Sohei Nishino

Diorama Map and activities or the history or memory Cities are “amplifying” themselves repeatedly. of the people who live there. They emerge and disappear as they continue The constant “movement” is what constitutes to integrate into themselves. With a camera in the important element of the Diorama Map my hand, I walk through specific cities to take series. The series is the deposit of my photographs—birds’ eye views, views captured experiences and of the time I have spent in by looking up above me or views from various encountering the various phenomena as I move locations along the road. Thereafter, referring through a certain place. At the same time, to the map, I put together on various canvases by using all my methods of photographing all the “fragments” I have captured, as the elements that constitute a map, I try so as to reconstruct my memories and be able to actualize, in the form of a bird’s-eye-view to render into images the specificity map, my awareness of the world which spreads of the respective cities and the appearance out before me, that is, immediately before of “the present” whose glimpse the cities have my eyes. A great many processes are included given me. By doing so, I try to express again in the process of producing this work. I can say the geographical representations by using that each of these processes constitutes a part photographs that have captured the specific of my journey through the cities. The reason things and events which are so completely for that is my belief that photographs are not different from the symbolic representations completed at the moment they are taken, on maps. This is my attempt to express but are completed in the process of recollecting the appearance of the cities, by integrating the memories thereafter by confronting them my personal experiences and memories. What again. I believe that what results from my results is not at all a map which conveys precise confronting these enormous number information, but the record of how I, as a of photographs, and actualizing them again human being, have walked through the city in the form of a map by integrating them, streets and looked at those streets. Along with is my personal portrait, as well as being the representation of my awareness, it is my representation of the appearance that of the appearance of the respective cities of a specific city and the glimpse it has given as the epitome of their vitality. I try to capture me. Moreover, by emphasizing “repetitions” the cities, not necessarily as entities consisting in this series, I try to see the transformation of the symbolized information and material in my personal way of responding to cities buildings, but as the fresh and organic Life, and communicating them, not to mention that is the accumulation of the experiences the transformations of the cities as structures.

72 Diorama Map Amsterdam, 2014

73 Diorama Map Hong Kong, 2010

74 Diorama Map Tokyo, 2004 Diorama Map Tokyo, 2014

75 Diorama Map Istanbul, 2011 Diorama Map Jerusalem, 2013

76 Diorama Map Johannesburg, 2015

77 Diorama Map New Delhi, 2013

78 Diorama Map London, 2010 Diorama Map Paris, 2007

79 Koji Onaka

I set up my first darkroom in my room at When I was 28, I opened up a small space home when I was 16, and started to develop for my work that I named Gallery Kaido and print film by myself. and I did a series of exhibitions titled After graduating from Tokyo Photography Seitaka-awadachiso that were held thirty-two College, I joined an independent gallery called times over a period of four years. CAMP, founded by Daido Moriyama, when When this exhibition series came to end, I was 22, in 1982. I had my first exhibition I made my first photo book. at CAMP in 1983. Since then, I have travelled to a lot of rural I took photos of my hometown for that Japanese towns and foreign countries. exhibition because I had been away But I continue to look for traces of my own since I was ten. memories in every place I visit. I had the feeling that I wanted to find my lost I haven’t really changed that much, I still make childhood memories there. all my own prints in my darkroom even now.

80 Asahi. Toyama, 2013 C-print, image 30.4 x 34.6 cm; paper 30.4 x 41 cm

81 Nogata. Fukuoka, 2011 Asahi. Toyama, 2013 Itoigawa. Nigata, 2013 C-print, image C-print, image C-print, image 30.4 x 34.6 cm; 30.4 x 34.6 cm; 30.4 x 34.6 cm; paper 30.4 x 41 cm paper 30.4 x 41 cm paper 30.4 x 41 cm

82 83 84 Imi. Toyama, 2013 Ina. Nagano, 2013 Ina. Nagano, 2013 C-print, image C-print, image C-print, image 30.4 x 34.6 cm; 30.4 x 34.6 cm; 30.4 x 34.6 cm; paper 30.4 x 41 cm paper 30.4 x 41 cm paper 30.4 x 41 cm

85 86 Hanamaki. Iwate, 2012 Aniai. Akita, 2013 C-print, image C-print, image 30.4 x 34.6 cm; 30.4 x 34.6 cm; paper 30.4 x 41 cm paper 30.4 x 41 cm