Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre, in collaboration with Three Shadows +3 Gallery, is proud to unveil "STAGE OF INFINITY: PHOTOGRAPHY BY EIKOH HOSOE". This exhibition heralds the first significant retrospective in China of Eikoh Hosoe, a prominent Japanese photographic artist. Following its debut in Beijing, this tour showcases seven of Hosoe’s iconic photography series which are 39 of his classic works. This historical retrospective revisits the vibrant art scene in Japan from the 1950s to the 1970s, bringing to light the timeless black-and-white masterpieces crafted through Hosoe’s lens.
Renowned as one of the most internationally esteemed Japanese photographers, Eikoh Hosoe was born in 1933 in Yamagata-ken, Japan. Beginning his photography career in the 1950s, Hosoe embarked on a quest to explore the realms of inner consciousness amidst a Japanese post-war photography scene predominantly focused on social realism and reportage. His work gained notable attention in 1957 when showcased in "The Eyes of Ten", an exhibition curated by photography critic Tatsuo Fukushima. In 1959, Hosoe, alongside other avant-garde photographers, co-founded the VIVO group, challenging the era’s mainstream "Photorealism Movement". This collective effort marked the advent of a photography style rich in subjectivity and personal form of creative expression, setting a new direction away from the prevailing norms.
During the transformative period of 1955 to 1965, post-war Japan experienced its most crucial decade, coinciding with rapid economic growth and the rise of avant-garde cultural figures. Among them were Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, novelist and playwright Yukio Mishima and experimental artist Yayoi Kusama. Eikoh Hosoe, in his youth, formed close relationships with these luminaries. Their experimental and open collaborations yielded a series of dramatically intense and narrative-rich photographs. In the shooting process, the exceptionally talented artists resonated with each other, with their inspiration and thoughts intertwining and colliding, ultimately coalescing into a powerful expressive force that was captured in the instant Hosoe pressed the shutter.
Eikoh Hosoe has long committed to the pursuit of an independent aesthetic through human bodies, exploring the profound expressions of emotion and spirit. His groundbreaking work Man and Woman in 1960 serves as a pioneering experiment that solidified such artistic direction. This avant-garde study of the human form delves into societal realities through art, featuring high-contrast color tones, unexpected composition of the pictures and the dynamic interaction and exploratory postures of male and female subjects, which masterfully describe the eternal nuances, relationships and hierarchies between man and woman.
Published in 1971, Embrace is often seen as a sequel to Man and Woman, marking Eikoh Hosoe’s reflective journey into the essence of his work with human bodies. For a decade, Hosoe delved into the articulate expression of human strength, aesthetics and being. Ultimately, captured at a serene yet intense night, Embrace abstracted naked human bodies into exquisite "forms", celebrating the elegance of life and the nobility of the soul to its fullest extent.
Eikoh Hosoe’s connection with Yukio Mishima sparked during a photographic project and later blossomed into the creation of Ordeal by Roses between Autumn 1961 and Summer 1962. This series, which has become one of the most widely disseminated and celebrated of his works, showcases a resplendent and intense narrative. Set against the backdrop of a Victorian courtyard, Rococo-style rooms and the shadows of Renaissance paintings, Mishima concealed with these elaborate artistic decors. His intense gaze and the muscular definition of his body convey a stark opposition to death and a fervent longing for life.
Between 1959 and 1960, the genesis of Butoh as the modern cultural movement and the emergence of Eikoh Hosoe as an avant-garde photographer signified a pivotal period. Kamaitachi, jointly created by Hosoe and Tatsumi Hijikata years after, moved the stage of Butoh dance to villages in northeastern Japan, embarking on an exploratory journey of "taboos" and "liberation". A series of impromptu performances made by Tatsumi Hijikata, ranging from anger, ecstasy to silence, mirrored the cunning and peculiar nature of Kamaitachi from Japanese folklore. Following the figure of Tatsumi Hijikata, Hosoe was running and jumping in the fields and villages, capturing moments among villagers and children with great agility. These monochromes vividly unveiled the childhood memories of Hosoe, rising a mixed emotion of suffering, fear, shiver and desperation, which, through the lens of his camera, found healing and resolution over time.
Among all the subjects he photographed, Eikoh Hosoe shared the deepest connection with Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno. Hosoe deeply admired Ohno’s dance, which was profoundly influenced by his wartime experiences of witnessing horrific scenes of living hell, leaving indelible marks of human suffering, vulnerability and sorrow. These complex emotions of the soul were powerfully expressed through Ohno’s measured and tranquil movements. Hosoe’s collaboration with Ohno spanned 46 years, culminating in the inclusion of these remarkable photographs in The Butterfly Dream when commemorating the legendary dancer’s centenary.
In 1964, Eikoh Hosoe embarked on his first journey outside Japan to Europe and America. In New York, he reunited with friends and conducted a photo session with the emerging international artist Yayoi Kusama. Named after the studio of Yayoi Kusama, New York 14th Street records the early performance art and creation behind the scenes of this young avant-garde artist. Hosoe used multiple exposures to create overlapping images of Yayoi Kusama, subtly reflecting the mutual empathy between two compatriots on a foreign land.
Eikoh Hosoe’s works are intensely personal, drawing inspiration from unique encounters, notably with the avant-garde theater member Simon Yotsuya, who is immortalized in Simon, A Private Landscape. Yotsuya, with his distinctive attire, meticulous makeup and effeminate allure, revives the Tokyo of Hosoe’s youth. His dynamic poses and expressions starkly contrast with urban backdrops like Asakusa Kannon Temple, Hatonomachi Street and Azumabashi Bridge. Hosoe weaves Simon’s intimate world with the external urban landscape, bestowing the series with unparalleled expressiveness and aesthetic depth.
Eikoh Hosoe’s series are characterized by darkness, oppression, distortion and radicalism, confronting the surreal aspects of the body, gender, life, death and emotion which starkly diverge from conventional reality. Contrasting with the societal facade of order and morality, which conceals ugliness and indecency, Hosoe fearlessly exposes the raw, absurd and brutal facets of existence. His works in "Hosoe Theater", from the terror in a face trapped beneath an arm in Man and Woman, to Yukio Mishima’s intense stare behind roses in Ordeal by Roses, Tatsumi Hijikata’s dramatic gestures in Kamaitachi and Kazuo Ohno’s soulful interpretation with his emaciated body in The Butterfly Dream, all reveal a glittering purity and authenticity of human spirit amidst the darkness, underscoring a profound exploration of genuine and deep-seated emotions.
Commentaries:
Instead of simply photographing the subject, he began to view himself as involved in the creation of a distinct space and time. Armed with his camera, Hosoe created a rupture in the conventional time and space of reality, which Hijikata and Mishima could enter and perform within.
——Yasufumi Nakamori, Director of the Asia Society Museum, New York
One day, Eikoh Hosoe stopped by and whisked me away to a mysterious world. The world into which I was ushered by the wizardry of his lens was alien, contorted, derisive, grotesque, barbaric, and dissipated, and yet it was also a realm in which the murmurs of a pure undercurrent of lyricism flowed through some unseen conduit.
—Yukio Mishima
I only photograph people I know well and find genuinely intriguing. During the sessions, I immerse them in an environment I am familiar with and capture them in my way. This is my "Hosoe Theater", where I am the producer, director, audience, and even the critic, watching the subjects stage a magnificent performance exclusively for me.
— Eikoh Hosoe