August 7, 2006 at 20:27 · Filed under Exhibition, Photographer, Publication
If you happen to be in Tokyo area I would highly recommend a side trip to the Kawaski City Museum to see the exhibition about “Yônosuke Natori and Nippon Studio (1931-1945)” (until Sept. 3).
Yônosuke Natori (1910-62) was a professional photographer, founder of “Nippon Studio” (“Nippon Kôbô” in Japanese) and publisher of the international, multilanguage magazine “Nippon” (Japan). With his studio and the magazine Yonosuke Natori introduced to Japan cutting-edge photographic techniques and design that he studied in Germany.
At the end of the 1920s beginning 1930s there were several epicentres for modern photography in Japan, in cities with Avant Garde culture like Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe and Ashiya. All photographers – mostly amateurs - were organized in groups like the “Tanpei Shashin Club” (Osaka), “Ashiya Shashin Club” (Ashiya) or “Shinkô Shashin Kenkyûkai” (New Photography Research Society), Tokyo.
Yônosuke Natori didn’t belong to any of these groups. 1928 at the age of 18 he went to Germany, where he studied arts an crafts in Munich. From 1931 he worked as a photo journalist for German newspapers and returned to Japan as a contract photographer for Ullstein Verlag, a publishing house behind several newspapers and magazines in Germany.
Following the Japanese habit not to work alone he founded the group “Nippon Kôbô” in 1933 (after an assignment in China). “Nippon Kôbô” became a core group of modern photo journalism in Japan, with photographers like Kimura Ihei (who left in 1934 to found a new studio with other photographers), Ken Domon and Masao Horino (both joined in 1934).
In 1934 Natori founded the magazine “Nippon” (Japan). The magazine was designed to promote Japanese culture to the West and was published in English, French, German and Spanish until 1944. Utilizing designs and techniques from German magazines “Nippon” was much higher in quality than other magazines of the same kind in prewar Japan, but became a very rare item soon, since most of its copies were distributed overseas.
The exhibition is the result of a joint research of curators from Fukushima, Tokyo and Kawasaki. It gives the first comprehensive overview over of the careers of Yônosuke Natori and his young photographers and designers in the 1930s-40s, with 400 magazines, printed works, photographs and documents on display.
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Recommended books:
Natori Yonosuke and Nippon Studio (1931-45) [Jap.]
Natori Yonosuke. Japanese Photographers Vol. 18 [Jap.]
Also:
NIPPON vol. 1
NIPPON vol. 2
NIPPON vol. 3
July 24, 2006 at 21:43 · Filed under Exhibition, Photographer
Daido Moriyama is currently exhibited at Foam (Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, until August 23).
Those who are a little bit into Japanese photography will know his work. Daido Moriyama is one of the most important photographers of the 20th century and IMHO his book “Farwell Photography” (1972) is more radical than any western photography book of the beginning 1970s. At the moment I am waiting for a new reprint of “Farwell Photography” and I will write more about it after it has arrived from Japan.
Moriyama is one of the most important Japanese artists in the medium today. His work has had an enormous influence on the development of modern photography. This exhibition at Foam presents prints of pictures taken in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, including photos from famous books such as ‘Farewell Photography’, ‘Light and Shadow’ and ‘Platform’. Most of the pictures shown are vintage prints.
Daido Moriyama (b. 1938, Osaka) began photographing at the age of 21. After moving to Tokyo he worked for a while with the eminent photographer Eikoh Hosoe. In 1963 he set up as a freelance photographer and began his extensive and now legendary oeuvre, which continues to expand to this day.
Moriyama generally takes his photos with a compact 35mm camera on the streets Japan’s principal cities. The images betray the speed at which they are made. Often the horizon is crooked and the photo is blurred, or the grain is visible and the contrast is turned too far. His subjects range from underexposed, obscure bars to strip clubs and dark alleys. He seems to be interested more in the suggestion of form than in a clear, well delineated figure. His visual idiom is rough and ready, and he often directs the lens at details that are out of context thereby evoking a fragmented and stifling atmosphere.
Moriyama’s visual idiom is rooted in the 1960s. Those years represent a crucial period in Japan’s modern history. This was a time when the world began to forgot about the Second World War and a postwar generation of artists arose in Japan that focused on the contradictions in Japanese society. For while Japan experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth, Japanese society was also plagued by a profound sense of guilt, shame and fear.
[Quotes: Foam]
[Addendum]
I just saw that Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, shows a short film by Daido Moriyama “shinjuku 1973, 25pm” (until Aug. 26). The film is a premiere and hopefully I will be able to see it in the near future.
This film was originally shot in 1973 with an 8mm portable VTR, by the request of Shinjuku Ward for promotion of the city. However, the completed film was rejected by Shinjuku Ward because it was a sequence of unidentified images in which one cannot identify the country in which it was shot. Thus the film was shelved for over 30 years.
The “Blurs / flows / rough images,” which are characteristic of Moriyama’s photography, obviously appear in this film. The screen sways as if in the wind, the night town a trace of light that comes and goes, the camera tracing a monochrome world which is situated somewhere between the border of figuration and abstraction.
On the occasion of screening the film, we will exhibit new photographic stills which Moriyama shot from the rediscovered film. The repetition inherent in this project serves as further evidence of Moriyama’s continuing concern with the act of copying.
[Quotes: Taka Ishii Gallery]
July 23, 2006 at 0:54 · Filed under Publication
The first visit in one of the big bookstores in Tokyo in search for Japanese photography books can be an overwhelming experience. If you take one of the major bookstores in Tokyo like Kinokuniya at Takashimaya Square in Shinjuku/ Tokyo for example: the store covers several huge floors and the art/ photography/ design department alone is bigger than most bookstores I know.
Even though the different book sections are named in English the language barrier is the major problem for each potential buyer: without a basic ability to read Japanese it almost impossibleto identify any of the hundreds of books in front of you. However, even with the ability to read, withouta basic knowledge of the Japanese photography world it is very hard to find the essential, interesting or unique publications of the recent years - older books cannot be found in this kind of store anyway (I will talk about this later).
After the initial confusion upon entering the empire of signs [I always love to quote Roland Barthes :-)] it becomes evident: the sheer quantity of Japanese photography books is amazing. Even I dont have any hard statistical evidence it is clear that much more photography books are published in Japan than in most (any?) Western countries - without a doubt more than in any European country.
The reason for this is twofold: First there is a huge demand in Japan for photography books on topics like nature, landscape and animal (pet) photography, which has its own audience different form the readership of art photography books. Moreover, there is another segment in Japanese market, which has no comparable equivalent in the west: The nude photography book market. Of course, in western stores you will always find some books by the usual suspects like Helmut Newton or Peter Lindbergh, but this cannot be compared to the monthly output of the Japanese publishers of nude photography books. While in the West these books are mainly bought because of the name of the photographer who represents a certain style, in Japan the photographer might be recognized, but in the centre of this phenomenon stands the depicted woman. A woman who is sometimes a famous actress and/or singer, but more often she is a so called “tarento” (talent), who attracts the audience only because of her physical appearance and usually lacks any real talent:
Every year the Japanese entertainment industry produces dozens of new female talents (tarento) whose only discernible talent in an ability to project certain qualities thought desirable or fashionable at the moment (girl-next-door cheerfulness, disco-diva sluttishness). Most are little more than decorative presences on TV shows or commercials, and are as interchangeable as the ikebana arrangement on the hosts desk. Others eke out evanescent careers as singers (who cant carry a tune or write their own songs) or actresses (whose effusions would never pass muster at a high-school dramaclub audition)
[Quote: Marc Schilling: The Encyclopaedia of Japanese Pop Culture]
July 22, 2006 at 2:41 · Filed under Photographer, Publication
This book took almost a year until it reached Europe, but now it leaves a strong impression on those who have had already the opportunity to see it. Recently Markus my local photo book dealer told me that this book is doing very well and just yesterday a friend from France praised the quality of the photographs published in “A KA RI” by Tamotsu Fujii.Most will not have heard the name of the photographer before, since his work is rarely exhibited or published outside Japan. However in Japan Tamotsu Fujii is well known as a commercial photographer who did advertising photography for major companies like JR East (Japan Railway) or Suntory. Fujii won amongst others the ACC (All Japan Radio and Television Commercial Confederation) Award, Japan’s most prestigious advertising award for commercials, and in 2003 he received the Tokyo Art Directors Club (ACC) award for his Muji campain.
Tamotsu Fujii for Muji
[I have only seen the Muji poster on the web yet, but if someone has one left over at home, don't hesitate to send it to me :-).]
Read the rest of this entry »
July 15, 2006 at 19:25 · Filed under Photographer, Publication
Last fall the publisher of the bilingual magazine European Photography asked me to write a short review on the book Aoisora Polgasun by Aoi Sora. At that time I had never heard the name of the photographer and a short search on the web revealed that Aoi Sora is not a photographer by profession, but a Japanese idol and porn star, who made a series of self portraits on request of the publisher PowerShovelBooks, a publisher who is involved in Lomo photography.
5 Japanese popular idols are asked to take self-portrait. They are given more than 50 films and few days for it. They are asked to take the cameras with them all the time, anywhere they go and anywhere they are. As if the cameras are their boyfriends or undetestable stalkers. The girls are Nao Oikawa, Aki Hoshino, Rei Ito, Kyouko Nakashima and Sora Aoi. Their mission is to keep on popping shutters until they get sick of doing it.[...]
(Later) we asked Sora to take pictures continuously. We were desperate to see more photographs she takes. Sora was kind and curious enough to take photographs with many cameras we provided, such as BabyHolga, Babylon4, Holga and GR. Most of the photographs taken by Sora with those cameras were very interesting. However, her photographs have been completely changed since she started using POLGA. (You know, POLGA is Holga Polaroid holder for Holga.)
[Quote: Hideki Ohmori/ PowerShovelBooks]
[Polgasun short review] Photography became the preferred medium of self-expression for young woman in Japan in the mid-1990s, giving rise to a veritable boom in girl photographers (onna no ko shashinka). For them, the camera represented a tool in their search for identity in a society that still offers women little more than the traditionalroles of mother and housewife or minor employee. The first book by a girl photographer by Yurie Nagashima in 1995 consisted mainly of self-portraits in the form of nude photographs à la Nobuyoshi Araki and Nan Goldin. Since then, the term “self-nude” for this kind of photography by young women has gained common currency in Japan.
Having been given a Polga (Polaroid) camera in the context of a photography project, Aoi Sora also chose the theme of the “self-nude”. The result is the book Aoisora Polgasun (Tokyo, 2005) containing nude self-portraits in both black-and-white and color which play with intimate and lascivious poses. And therein lies the decisive difference to earlier girlphotographers, whose self-nudes were rather timid, reticent, cautious. Not so Aoi Sora, who is a celebrated Japanese nude idol and well-known porn star, accustomed to showing off her body and all its details in public. It would appear that in Polgasun she is trying to swap the wretchedness and banality of the pornography genre for intimacy and authenticity, and, as Mariko Takeuchi a Japanese critic suspects, find a way back into the mainstream of society through this more accepted form of self-presentation.
(Slightly altered version of the review published in:
European Photography, No. 78, Fall/ Winter 2005)
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Recommended book:
Aoi Sora: Polgasun
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