I know I wrote a few times about Rinko Kawauchi - with whom I had a very pleasant dinner in Tokyo a few weeks ago -, but since this is the first time that her famous series “Utatane” from 2001 is exhibited in a solo show outside Japan, I thought it is worth to mention it.

Rinko Kawauchi “Uatane”, at Art77, presented by Antoine de Vilmorin (until May 3).

As far as I know there has not been much written about the series and book “Utatane” (in contrary to “Aila”)  and which has lead to Rinko’s national and international breakthrough. For “Utatane” (and for her book “Hanabi” [Fireworks]) the artist received the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award and the book was included in the “The Photobook: A History. Vol. 2″ by Parr and Badger. Badger wrote a very interesting comment on Rinko and “Utatane” in the photobook anthology:

Just when it seems that everything has been photographed, in every possible way, along comes a photographer, whose work is so original that the medium is renewed. Such a photographer is Rinko Kawauchi, who makes simple, lyrical pictures, so fresh and unusual that they are difficult to describe or classify.

Her images documentary everyday things, yet could not be described as documentary. They are generally light in tone, yet somehow dark in mood. They are almost hallucinatory, yet seem to capture something fundamental about the psychological mood of modern life.

To be sure, Utatane, the title of her book, means ’siesta’, which brings in the notion of a dreamlike state, and each image in the book could plausibly be considered as a still from a movie about a dream. The presence of a number of animals - insects, seagulls, koi carp, rabbits - might suggest some kinf of Freudian interpretation.

If Kawauchi in conjuring up a dreamlike state, she is also creating a powerful metaphor for life in the contemporary metropolis, which, at least economically, is comfortable for most people, on the surface. The dream evoked in Uatatane is not nightmarish. Nothing much untoward happens, yet there is enough off-kilter to awaken us from our nap feeling vaguely confused, depressed and anxious.
[Quotes: Gerry Badger]

—
Recommended books:
Rinko Kawauchi: Utatane (2001)
Martin Parr, Gerry Badger: The Photobook: A History. Vol. II

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I packed my bag and I am off to South East Asia for to spend some leisure time.

A great 2008 to everybody!

新年明けましおめでとうございます！

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A year later I saw Mikiko’s work again in the group exhibition about young Japanese women photographers “Private Room II” at Art Tower Mito. Curated by Kohtaro Iizawa this exhibition was a kind of assessment of the “onna no ko shashinka” (girly photographer) phenomenon which had already faded at that time. I felt that Mikikos work was misplaced in the girly photographer context, since she was a few years older than these ‘girlies’ like Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima. Also Hiromix’s and Nagashima’s main aim was to use the camera for to talk about themselves and to deal with their own identity. Mikiko’s topic is different, she does not speak about herself:

Primary speaking
What I photograph are people who I happen to pass by while I am walking down the street, or things and scenes that casually catch my eye in everyday life.
My snapshots are accumulations of daily incidents.
I don’t depend on coincidence, and it does not induce me to photograph either. Rather, I yield myself to the natural flow, go out and stop where I photograph. [...]
I am powerless against the outside world, and have neither special approach nor message.
[Quote: Mikiko Hara, in "Private Room II", 1999]

After my return to Germany I lost touch with Mikiko unfortunately and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw in 2005 a new book Hara Mikiko - Hysteric Thirteen in a Tokyo bookstore. I presume that this book led to an exhibition of her work at Cohen Amador Gallery, New York, last spring.

Sentient and contemplative, Haras color imagery of both people and places she passes in her native Japan arrests the viewer between feelings of levity and of foreboding. The aesthetic that she brings to her images imbues them with this tense balance, characteristic of daily life in the security states of the twenty first century. [...]
Her photographs simultaneously present the non-threatening surface of things while keenly alluding to the underlying tensions that exist just below these superficial realities, unnerving us and often unnerving the subjects in the photographs.
[Quote: Cohen Amador Gallery]

Hara lets her subjects body language and expressions speak as much as their surroundings. In one image, girls at the beach look surprisingly sullen considering their location. The sky and sand, both baize, come to frame the pastels of their garb and heighten the discomfort in their faces. They could be fearing an unsure future or just as easily frowning from the discomfort of their now wet clothes, or - as Hara would have us believe - both.
[Quote: Cohen Amador Gallery]

While Mikiko Hara was too old be considered a ‘girly photographer’ in the 1990s, nowadays she is often compared with a photographer who was too young to be included into this phenomenon.

It happened to me several times in the recent months that I was told that her photographs look like the work of Rinko Kawauchi. I think that this is a misunderstanding. While both photographers work in color, use midsize cameras for square images and do a lot of shots in the streets, Mikiko Hara’s approach is different to Rinko Kawauchi. Rinko Kawauchi’s work is first of all a poetic appreciation of life (which does not exclude to talk about death), with images which range from straight documentary photographs (see her book “Cui Cui”) to fragile, almost dreamlike images with delicate colors (see her book “Utatane”). Mikiko Hara’s photography is poetic as well, but she has a different topic. She talks about distance and isolation of people in public spaces - especially of women. And for this she applies a different use of colors. Her colors are more intense and sometimes a little bit caustic, which amplifies the impression of detachment of the subjects in her images.

I hope that in the future Mikiko’s work will be recognized for what it is, and not be put into albeit obvious but misleading contexts for to attach an easily utilizable label on her work…

[Update]
I just saw that Mikiko Hara’s work is included in the group exhibition “A PRIVATE HISTORY. Mikiko Hara, Masanori Ikeda, Kumi Oguro, Ryudai Takano” at the Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark (Sept. 29 - Dec. 21, 2007).

Mikiko Hara
1967 Born in Toyama pref.Japan
1990 B.A. in Philosophy, Keio University
1994 Graduates from Tokyo College of Photography
Solo exhibitions
1996 “Is As It”, Gallery le Deco 6, Tokyo
1998 “Agnus dei” Nikon Salon, Tokyo
2001 “Utsuro no Seihou”, Konica Plaza Eeast, Tokyo/ The Third Gallery Aya, Osaka
2004 “Hatsugo no Mawari”, Guardian Garden, Tokyo
2005 “Hysteric Thirteen Hara Mikiko Photo Exhibition”, PLACE M, Tokyo
2007 “Blind Letter”, Cohen Amador Gallery, New York
—
Recommended books:
Mikiko Hara - Hysteric Thirteen
Rinko Kawauchi: Utatane
Rinko Kawauchi: Cui Cui

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Daido Moriyama. Retrospective from 1965
Photographische Sammlung / SK-Stiftung Kultur (Photographic Collection / SK-Culture Foundation)
Sept. 5 - Dec. 12, 2007

At the beginning of September Daido Moriyama was in Cologne again. He came for the opening of his exhibition Daido Moriyama. Retrospective from 1965 which is held at the same place where he received the Culture Award three years ago.

This retrospective, which comprises some 500 photographs, presents the decidedly complex work of Daido Moriyama (b. 1938), one of the most renowned Japanese photographers, from 1965 to the present day. It consists of thirteen series of pictures, largely based on vintage material, and a film presentation. Although Moriyama belongs to Japans post-1945 artist generation, who struck out along radically new aesthetic paths in the post-war period, it is interesting to note that to this day his work has lost none of its currency or artistic scope.

In a compilation assembled by the artist himself, the following series of pictures are on display, each of which has its own resonance and its own speed: Pantomime (1965), Actor Shimizu Isamu (1967), NIPPON GEKIJO SHASHINCHO (Japan Theater Photo Album) (1968), Marine Accident (1969), Smash-Up (1969), Provoke No. 2 and No. 3 (1969), 71 N.Y. (1971), KARIUDO (Hunter) (1971), SHASHINYO SAYOUNARA (Farewell Photography) (1972), Light and Shadow, (1981/82), Daido Hysteric (1993) and Shinjuku (2000-04).
[Quote: Die Photographische Sammlung / SK-Stiftung Kultur]

This is a huge and well presented show which was exhibited in a slightly different version at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, last spring and some time ago in a smaller version at the Foam, Amsterdam. It is important to emphasize, that this is the first exhibition in the West which shows Daido’s works in series and not only as a chaotic, albeit impressive universe of fantastic images.

The Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo produced a well printed catalogue. The publication contains a remix of photographs from around four decades, which means it follows a similar concept like the two previous retrospective publications Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog by the SFMOMA (1999) and Daido Moriyama by the Fondation Cartier (2003). While these publications were instrumental to introduce Daido’s works to the West, in my opinion it is about time for a monograph which introduces the most important series in a chronological order, in order to give a deeper understanding of how Daido’s work evolved and changed over the years.1

Daido Moriyama: “Kyoku / Erotica”
Galerie Priska Pasquer
Sept. 15 - Dec. 14, 2007

Daido Moriyama also came to the preview of his exhibition Kyoku / Erotica which took place on the day of the opening of his retrospective at the SK-Stiftung. Both events demonstrated how famous Daido has become in the recent years, since both event drew a lot of visitors.

The exhibition ‘Kyoku / Erotica’ features photographs from Daido’s book with the same title which was published in June 2007. The ’Kyoku / Erotica’ series brings together recent photographs (taken since 1999), from cities such as Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Sydney. For Daido, this is the continuation of a photographic career that began in the 1960s on the streets of Tokyo:

’’Starting with Yokosuka, my earliest work, I have consistently made the external environment - in the cities, on the streets - my territory. The infinite number of cities, the people in them, the shop windows, the signs - all of this comes together in a perfect, harmonious whole that forms a whirlpool and floods the streets’’.
[Quote: Daido Moriyama]

The title of the exhibition - ’Kyoku / Erotica’ - reflects Daido Moriyama’s ambivalent perception of the world. The word Kyoku can be translated as danger zone. For Daido Moriyama, the world is both a danger zone and a minefield of sexual tension, a mixture of danger and allure. The images in this series interact to form a veritable kaleidoscope of the world as seen by a flâneur or a stray dog - the latter having been chosen by Moriyama as his alter ego in his earlier work. From this perspective, there are no special or outstanding places - all scenes are of equal importance. This perception is emphasized by Daido Moriyama through his raw, grainy, high-contrast style; these are photographs that show everyday scenarios in an ambivalent light - dangerous and erotic.

For me it is very interesting to see that Daido’s photographic concept of reality as well as his visual grammar he developed in the past decades is working so well at places he is not as familiar with as with his home country. This can be seen in this exhibition and in his other very recent series like Hawaii and Witness Number Two (with a series about Shanghai).

What if I mixed in photographs of some creek or cove out in the sticks here in Japan, with photographs of New York and Paris? But there’s not much connection, basically, to Japan or the rest of the world. One of the photographs just means I was there; in that sense, my attitude towards Japan and other places in the world is the same.
[Quote: Daido Moriyama: Kyoku / Erotica]

PS: I will give a lecture titled “Daido Moriyama and the Provoke Era” at the Photographic Collection / SK Culture Foundation on October 23 at 7 pm.

—
Recommended Books:
Daido Moriyama. Retrospective from 1965, Seville 2007
Daido Moriyama: Kyoku / Erotica, Tokyo 2007
Daido Moriyama: Hawaii, Tokyo 2007
Daido Moriyama: Witness Number Two, New York 2007
Daido Moriyama, Paris 2003
Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog, San Francisco 1999

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American Photography

As the New York Times points out John Szarkowski “was first to confer importance on the work of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand” and two of his books, “‘The Photographer’s Eye,’ (1964) and ‘Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures From the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art’ (1973), remain syllabus staples in art history programs.” Szarkowski also introduced the work by William Eggleston in the now legendary exhibition “William Egglestons Guide” (1976). This exhibition “was widely considered the worst of the year in photography.”

New Japanese Photography

John Szarkowski left definitely his mark in the field of American photography, but not only there. In 1974 John Szarkowski organized together with Shôji Yamagishi (editor of Camera Mainichi magazine) the exhibition “New Japanese Photography”. The exhibition introduced 15 photographers, amongst them the grand masters of Japanese photography: Ken Domon, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Shomei Tomatsu, Kikuji Kawada, Masatoshi Naitoh, Tetsuya Ichimura, Hiromi Tsuchida, Masahisa Fukase, Ikko, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, Ryoji Akiyama, Ken Ohara, Shigeru Tamura and Bishin Jumonji.
It was the first major exhibition about contemporary Japanese photography outside Japan ever.

Immediate Experience

Besides the excellent selection of artists and photographs the cataloge to the exhibiton with two short essays by John Szarkowski and Yôji Yamagishi laid the groundwork for the reception of Japanese photography of the 1960s and 1970s.

In his essay John Szarkowski formulated within one paragraph the foundation for all later interpretations of this epoch of Japanese photography:

The quality most central to recent Japanese photography is its concern for the description of immediate experience: most of these picture impress us not as a comment on experience, or as a reconstruction of it into something more stable and lasting, but as an apparent surrogate for experience itself, put down with a surely intentional lack of reflection.
[Quote: John Szarkowski]

And Yôji Yamagishi described a major difference of the Japanese photographic practice of that time:

Contemporary Japanese photographers have values which seems distinct from those of the photographers of the West. They are, for example, not particularly interested in the quality of the finished print. [...] Japanese photographers have only a limited opportunity to present their original prints to the public. (Nor do they have the opportunity to sell their pictures to public or private collections.) [...] Japanese photographers usually complete a project in book form, joining in series a number of photographs related by a common subject, theme, or idea. The full value or impact of such work cannot be understood if individual pictures are isolated from the series for exhibitions on the walls of a museum. To do this deprives the photographs of their intended relationship to those which preceded or followed them in the series. In addition, the photographs were originally made to be reproduced in print form, in books and magazines, and not to be displayed a part of an exhibition. It is therefore almost impossible to present a precise and objective picture of the complexities of Japanese photography in an exhibition format.
[Quote: Shôji Yamagishi]

Neither Mirror nor Window

Both essays and especially the two quoted paragraphs are asking for to be commented and evaluated from todays perspective. I just would like to note that Szarkowski and Yamagishi opened for the first time the window to another continent of photography and they established the fact that the Japanese visual artists developed a unique way of describing the world with the medium photography. A photography which was neither interested in being a mirror (”"mirrors”-pictures that mean to describe the photographer’s own sensibility”) nor a window (”"windows”-realist photos of fact, including the facts of photography seen as a system. In short, the romantic vs. the realist”),1 but which was direct, radikal, unfiltered emotional and at times raw and dirty.

An Extraordinary Anthology of Photographic Images

This exhibition belongs definitely to John Szarkowski’s landmark exhibitions and this was already asserted by N. Y. Time’s critic Hilton Kramer:

This is, by any standard, an extraordinary anthology of photographic images. [...]
It is perhaps most extraordinary in the way it addresses itself to the rapid and radical changes that have overtaken Japanese life in this tumultuous period. Pictures such as Ryoji Akiyama’s “TV Frame Left in a Reclamation Area, Tokyo” (1970) and Hiromi Tuschida’s untitled photograph of a country picnic (1969) places us so firmly in the present that we can never again quite think of Japan in terms of the old romantic images.
Even more powerful - but powerful in an oddly esthetic rather than documentary fashion - are Shomei Tomatsu’s pictures of victims suffering various disease and physical disfigurements as the results of the atomic blasts that ended World War II. Yet rivaling these pictures in imaginative grotesquerie are the bizarre, erotic “inventions” of Eikoh Hose entitled “Killed by Roses” (1963), which bring a kind of cinematic freedom to the still medium.
[Quote: Hilton Kramer, New York Times, 1974]

Impact

For the curators (and collectors) of the 1970s and later the exhibition could have served as a guide book into at that time uncharted waters for to produce great shows and/or to start a leading collection of contemporary Japanese photography (of course it would have cost almost nothing to set up such a collection) - but nothing much happened in the two following decades. A reason could be that even though critics like Hilton Kramer found the exhibition extraordinary, he and others missed the focal point and real value of the show: while John Szarkowski and Shôji Yamauchi emphasized the distinction between Japanese and Western photography, Kramer’s final conclusion pointed in the opposite direction.

It will not do, I think, to try to discern a specific Japanese esthetic at work in this exhibition. What, if anything, dominates the eshetic spirit of the show is a sense of dialogue - sometimes harmonious, sometimes no - between Japanese and Western sensibilities.
[Quote: Hilton Kramer, New York Times, 1974]

There were some singular follow ups to “New Japanese Photography” like the exhibition “Japan: A Self-Portrait” organized by Shôji Yamagishi for the International Center of Photography in New York (1979), but just as with the William Eggleston exhibition John Szarkowski was ahead of his time.

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