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• 1 media/906_World+Trade+Center,+1997.jpg 2020-09-01T14:33:36-07:00 Space: Phantom and Fantasy 38 image_header 2021-02-18T22:32:27-08:00 Image, often seen as a surface, two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional world, is an artefact of rendering spatial experience. When photographers press the button, they are translating their perceptions of spaces. This section investigates Japanese spatial conception through a selection of photos of architecture, landscape, and nature. 
  
  Japanese philosophize about space. Their spatial thinking is reflected linguistically in their rich vocabulary of describing space and greatly drawn from sensory experiences. The attention to the latter is evident in Japanese architectural design. The Japanese-style atmospheric curation of spaces shapes visitors’ perception in creative ways; it invites a more organic, experiential spatial conception distinguished from the mechanical view that space is objectively measured. The sensory aspect of spatial experience combines the physical and psychological, the body and mind, and the exterior and interior, which have religious implications rooted in traditional Japanese culture.
  
  
  Graduating Tokyo School of Photography, Yoshio Watanabe (1907-2000) worked as a freelance photojournalist and later as the editor of Photo Times monthly magazine from 1930 to 1934. In 1935, he founded Watanabe studio in Tokyo and started to explore his artistic path. Influenced by the dramatized geometrical style of Eric Mendelsohn and Albert Renger-Patzsch, his photography style conveys a sense of calmness. His shoot of Okada House established his reputation as an architectural photographer and later brought him the significant commission that marked his most prestigious shoot at Ise Shrine.    
  
  
   
  Ise Shrine (伊勢神宮) serves as one of the venerable sites of Shinto. It consists of over 125 shrines and it is centered around the main shrines of Naiku (inner shrine) and Geku (outer shrine). Naiku dates back to the 3rd century. As a religious pilgrimage destination and tourist attraction, Ise Shrine has undergone regular reconstructions every 20 years since the 7th century. For a long time, visitors were denied access to the inner spaces of inner and outer shrines; only shrine priests and high-ranking officials were allowed to enter. The imperial legacy that Ise Shrine bears became contested during the Asia Pacific War, tied to imperialist invasion and nationalism. After the war, the political image blended with its cultural heritage, which echoes the post-war pursuit of searching for Japanese identity from traditional culture. In 1953, when the shrine was rebuilt, Watanabe became the first photographer to obtain access to Ise, and his photography work also became the first documentation to reveal the inside compounds of the shrines. [1]
  
  In this photo, Watanabe’s choices of angle and composition create a visual intimacy between viewers and the shrines. Instead of shooting the shrines on the front and middle, he employed a low angle and stood at the side, which resembles a visitor's view when entering into a new space. The destabilizing framing and dramatized high saturated tone also feature a tension that hints at the complexed implications and representations of this architecture.
  
  Following in the steps of Watanabe Yoshio, Yasuhiro Ishimoto (1921-2012) became the second photographer to enter the shrine. Born in an immigrant family, he moved between Japan and the United States during his childhood with his parents. In 1939, he went to Northwestern University and studied architecture for two years, which planted the seed and cultivated his interests of photography. He made his astounding presence by Katsura Imperial Villa photo series almost in the same time as Yoshio made the Ise Shrine. Accompanying the design curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art as the guide, Ishimoto first visited the Katsura Imperial Villa (桂離宮, Katsura Rikyū) in Kyoto in 1953. 
  
  
  
  Katsura Imperial Villa was built in 1615 by the commission of Prince Toshihito. It is a large villa comprising buildings and gardens which are exemplary of traditional Japanese architecture and garden art. Ishimoto’s geometric-style depiction of its interior demonstrates a modern aesthetics of minimalism and precision. The calculated rigidity of squares and lines in photos is tempered by the light through shoji (障子). When the shoji slides open, a unhindered picturesque view of the garden fills in the center of the frame, highlighting the Japanese house’s connection to nature.
  
  Photography plays a significant role in promoting Japanese architecture worldwide and defining the parameters of architectural design. In translating the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional view, photographers experience, interpret, alter and sculpt the space. Architectural photography, as an assistance to architectural design and architectural media presentation, configures people’s spatial perception and imagination. 
  
  In many photo series, Hiroshi Sugimoto (1948-) adds a time dimension to the spatial expression, reminding us that photography is not only an art of light, but an art of time. 
  
  
   

  “One afternoon I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture. When the movie finished two hours later, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening I developed the film, and my vision exploded behind my eyes. ”

  
  In his Architecture series, he deliberately blurred the landmark buildings in frame, creating an out-of-focus effect reminiscent of the pictorial landscape photography. The blurring approach detaches architecture from its shapes and forms, rendering them virtual, phantom-state beings.

  “Building is the grave of architecture. When I face the phantoms of these architectures, I set the focus infinitely afar, and shoot the haunting phantoms. ”
  Until the Moss Grows, Hiroshi Sugimoto

  
  
  
  Photographer Naoya Hatakeyama (1958-) “redesigned” urban buildings by illuminating their night lights in his Maquettes/Light photo series. Born in northern Japan, Hatakeyama studied photography in Tsukuba University and pursued a career as a photographer based in Tokyo. His portfolio traverses the rural and city, the natural and man-made, the static and dynamic. Regarding photography as a means of communicating with the world, he imbues his photos with ruminative visions that shed new light on city life, built environment and artificial landscapes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
• 1 media/17051-hh.jpg 2020-09-01T14:25:09-07:00 Nihon at Large 23 image_header 2021-02-18T22:25:29-08:00 Introduced to Japan in the 1840s, photography evolved in parallel with the technological advances and economic progress after Japan ended its national seclusion policy which had limited trade with Europe, while at the same time maintaining trade within Asia. Following a similar pattern, Japanese photography started with portraits and commercial photography. Initially,  photography was distributed mostly among the imperial household, samurai(侍), geisha (芸者), Kabuki (歌舞伎) actors and celebrities. After the introduction of the gelatin dry plate process in the 1880s, the production of photos became simpler and more affordable; many amateur photographers began to form in groups. They started the earliest photography clubs and photo magazines, including Japan Photographic Society (Nihon Shashinkai/日本写真会) and Asahi Camera Magazine ( アサヒカメラ) . These institutions later proved to play a pivotal role in shaping Japanese photographic aesthetics and the dissemination of Japanese photographic culture. More than exhibiting works, photo journals and magazines in Japan provided a lively forum for photographers and photography critics to discuss, theorize and debate on the specificities and richness of the medium. Photo magazine issues of the early 20th century introduced a great variety images from abroad and information on photography exhibitions. Serious attempts to emphasize photography as an artistic medium other than its practical uses were made during this time. More photographers started to adopt the new approach of photography and explored its specificities as an artistic medium. The pictorialist style of photography featuring soft focus and pigment printing, which prevailed at that time, echoes the sensibilities of traditional ink painting (suibokuga /水墨画). In 1923, art critic Fukuhara Shinzo published “Light with its Harmony (光とその諧調)”in Photographic Art (Shashin Geijutsu 写真芸術), in which he points out the inherent quality of photographic medium -- light -- embodies the true character of photographic art. 
  
  Fused by drastic external changes, photographic expressions from the 1920s to the end of WWII were under the influence of German New Objectivity, and responded to the social phenomena and reexamined the objectivity/subjectivity binary. Hiroshi Hamaya (1915-1999) was one of the pioneers. Starting as a freelance photographer for newspapers and magazines, he built his career on Tokyo streets. The quirky, theatrical crowd at Ginza was a constant theme to most of his works. Viewers browse the geisha(芸者), shoppers, street vendors, and homeless people in the images in the same way they “shop” the streets. On a commissioned work trip to Niigata (新潟, northeastern Japan), Hamaya was exposed to a rural environment sharply different from Tokyo. He met local ethnographer Ichikawa Shinji there, who inspired Hamaya to later rethink the visual ideology of documentary photography and develop his ethnography project. In the winter of 1940, Hamaya returned to the Kuwatori (桑取) Valley in Niigata to document the local rituals during “Little New Year”.  In the “[Children], Singing as They Go, Drive Away Birds”, he captured a group of children walking in line on the deep snowfield. The lyrical manner contrasts with the asperity, adding a poetic quality to the rural life in Kuwatori Valley. [1]
  
  
  
  This photo series was published in his book Snow Land (Yukiguni/雪国) in 1956.

  "...the villages had a desolate appearance standing against the waves and the wind and the snow. The landscape astounded me. The realization that people could continue to live even in a place such as this brough my heart to a stand still. On the sea cliff the blowing wind struck us from the side. I was on an unfamiliar snow-covered road carrying a thirty-pound rucksack filled with one hundred flash bulbs and yet was not painful. This violent environment inspired courage. From this point forward that might happen? What would develop? With youthful passion I awaited this unknown world."
  Yukiguni (Snow Land) by Hiroshi Hamaya

  During the war time, photo magazines turned into a significant propaganda tool which featured military activities. FRONT is a large-format, foreign language photo magazine targeting overseas audiences published by the International Press Photography Association. It primarily covers Japanese military and political affairs. Many professional photojournalists including Hamaya worked for FRONT, taking pictures of the Japanese army bases in Asia to trumpet Japan’s might. After three years of military service, Shigeo Hayashi joined FRONT as a contributing photographer.
  
  
  
  In 1945, Shigeo Hayashi (1918–2002) was sent to document the aftermath of atomic bombing areas (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). In “Sanno Shinto Shrine”, the torii arch of the shrine was mostly destroyed; only one pillar stands against a big tree with naked branches. The stone steps to the torii and surrounding residential buildings were burned into pieces. Ruins remain a cultural symbol and unique aesthetics to modern Japan. The sacred and the secular, the new and the old -- all buried in ruins. Plagued by natural disasters and wars, Japanese form their identities under the looming apocalypses.
  
  Departing from pictorial aesthetics, post-war Japanese photography confronted the harsh social truth with critical lenses. Photojournalism and realism dominated the sphere while photographers started to form their communities spontaneously. In art collectives, they questioned the veracity of objective documentation and experimented with creative approaches that give weight to subjective expressions. 
   
• 1 media/252.jpg 2020-09-01T14:30:47-07:00 Introduction 19 image_header 2021-02-18T22:19:44-08:00 “The Allure of Shashin” surveys Japanese photography from the 1930s to the 2000s. This exhibition catalogs Japanese photographers’ visual explorations of and their critical responses to significant moments in twentieth century Japan. Looking beyond the archival and evidential uses of photography, this digital exhibition examines the allure of photography as an artistic medium for Japanese artists, as well as the shifting meanings of “Shashin (写真)” through a selection of 21 works from 15 Japanese artists. These works are chronologically categorized into five thematic categories that outline motifs recurring in both history of modern Japan and photography – documentary, architecture and spaces, city life, intimate portrait, as well as nature and landscapes. These exhibition categories contrast with and inform each other through rhetorical resonance while speaking of their thematic aesthetics individually.
  
  The interpretation of visual material that is at once defined by national borders and cultural exchange can be challenging. Much of the writing on Japanese photography easily falls prey to cultural essentialism and stereotypical assumptions. Japanese-unique aesthetics like “Wabi Sabi (侘び寂び)” and “Zen(禅)” are employed as convenient labels to demonstrate the “Japaneseness” in art works. The pursuit of inherent Japaneseness mirrors the struggles over national identity, which intensified after Second World War and aroused resistance against Western hegemony, and were followed by debates on “authentic” Japanese culture. Along with the traveling exhibitions on Japanese photography around the globe, scholarly attempts to define and analyze Japanese photographic aesthetics, too, are burgeoning both in and outside Japan: Anne Tucker’s The History of Japanese Photography, Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers, edited by Ivan Vartanian, Akihiro Hatanaka and Yutaka Kambayashi; Allegories of Time and Space: Japanese Identity in Photography and Architecture by Jonathan M. Reynolds, to name just a few. 
  
  Photography came to Japan as an imported optical recording technology from the West in the late 19 century and evolved along with the modernization process. In a relatively short time frame, Japan became the first non-Western nation to modernize and industrialize and was an emerging world power by the early twentieth century. During that time, Japanese artists mastered the pratice of photography and started a few small-scale studios. Photography first appeared as a documentary medium that reflected “truth” and life. However, as people enhanced their knowledge and experimented with the medium, it is easily noted that photography is less a reflective medium than a cultural product, embodying artistic production and mass consumption. Considering photography as a critical practice that engages the society through documentation, photography historians should take account of the artists’ agency and avoid reducing photography into the static visual archive of social history. Inviting viewers to take a closer look at these works, this exhibition sketches the story of how generations of Japanese photographers, who are drawn to the beauty of light and shadow, fall for the allure of photography. 
  
  “The Allure of Shashin” presents an overview of modern Japanese photography and scrutinizes its intersection with other mediums and art forms like literature, painting and architecture.This attention to photography as a self-reflective and intermedial practice demonstrates photography to be part of a visual narrative that runs through Japanese arts. Selection of works will interlace with multimedia interviews with featured artists and art criticisms in past publications, photo journals, and photo magazines. 
  
  Credits & Support
  Dr. Rebecca Corbett;  Ahmanson Lab at USC Libraries; USC East Asian Studies Center ACE-Nikaido Fellowship