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• 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