The History of Japanese Photography
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
March 2 - April 27, 2003
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents two centuries of Japanese photography in an unprecedented exhibition. The History of Japanese Photography is the first comprehensive exhibition in the West to survey the history of photography made by Japanese photographers. Jointly organized by the Japan Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the exhibition features more than 200 photographs by 110 photographers gathered from public and private collections around the world. After Houston, the exhibition will travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art.
The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue - the first extensive history of Japanese photography published in a Western language - examine the evolution of Japanese photography, how its aesthetic shifts relate to the country¡¦s historical and cultural developments, and its impact on photographers around the world. Among the exhibition´s highlights are 19th-century portraits of samurai and the Meiji Emperor, photographic scrolls with panoramas of major cities, and battlefields from the Russo-Japanese war. Selections from the 20th century include exquisite landscapes and still-life arrangements as well as several urban scenes. The post-World War II sections reflect an era of increasing global interaction during which contemporary Japanese artists have been exploring the boundaries of photographic expression.
Photography in Japan has a rich and varied history, but it hasbeen largely excluded from Western histories about the medium," said Peter C. Marzio, director of the MFAH. This show will demonstrate the importance of Japanese photography in that country and internationally. The museum´s photography department enjoys a strong reputation, in part, because of groundbreaking work like this. Houston audiences are fortunate to be the first to see this brilliant exhibition."
Works in the exhibition are presented to coincide with the main eras of modern Japanese history (Edo to Heisei), and each era is broken into two-decade sections, arranged chronologically. Photographs shown range in size from 4 by 5 inches to 4 by 5 feet. Books and periodicals are part of the display, providing an historic, social, and aesthetic context for the exhibition.
"This exhibition is intriguing on so many levels and is intended to provoke a number of discussions and shifts in our understanding of the broad history of photography," said Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH, who is part of an international team of curators who organized the exhibition and who is one of the authors of the catalogue. "In telling the greater story of the evolution of photography, the exhibition will look at the interaction of Japanese and Western photographers, links between photography and other Japanese art forms, and the aesthetic innovations created by Japanese photographers."
The exhibition begins with works by the first Japanese photographers in 1854, who began to pursue the art form after seeing photographs for the first time with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry. The Japanese had begun to study the daguerreotype a few years prior to Perry´s arrival, and quickly mastered photographic processes. As elsewhere in the world, portraiture was the first aspect of photography to gain popularity and studios were quickly established in the major cities. The early photographs captured the final moments of a warrior class and the rising influence of Western culture and technology, as well as the rise of a middle class.
In the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, Japan was involved in three wars that influenced the course of photography. By the early 1900s, amateur photography clubs were common in most major cities and their members were primarily interested in pictorialism, a style heavily influenced by painting. During World War II, the Japanese magazines Front, intended for export, and Nippon, intended for domestic audiences, were published to propagandize the Japanese position in World War II. Many of the country¡¦s most important documentary photographers began their careers at those magazines. During the war, and immediately after, several photographers began to document aspects of Japanese culture that they esteemed.
In 1959, a radical collective of magazine photographers started the Vivo Group. It only lasted two years, but its influence on magazine photographers was far-reaching. The group´s harsh, graphic styles can be compared with the grainy, high-contrast prints of their American contemporaries Robert Frank and William Klein. Another photographic group emerged in 1968, founded by photographers who published the magazine Provoke: Provocative Materials for the Mind. While Vivo members upheld an abiding commitment to humanism, members of Provoke sought to free themselves from external ideologies to express more intimate issues, which was a radical departure from the Japanese´s customary reticence to publicize their personal lives.
International travel from Japan was limited from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, first by the government then by American occupation. During that 20-year period, information about international photographic and visual-arts practices was limited. With the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and the Osaka World´s Fair in 1970, the climate for travel and a freer exchange of information improved. In the last two decades, Japanese photographers have been influenced by conceptualism, individualism, national and cultural identity, and environmental issues. Among the offerings in this final section are Kon Michiko´s gorgeous studio still-lifes based on photographing fish fresh from the sushi market, Yanagi Miwa´s kaleidoscopic spectacle with uniformed "Elevator girl" trapped in underground shopping arcades, and Shibata Toshio´s landscapes documenting the vast cement embankments that made it possible to build roads and bridges in the mountains. Hatekeyama Naoya explores the rivers and underground passages of Tokyo as Sugimoto Hirosi has photographed the world´s seas, theaters from Hollywood´s Golden Era, and Japan's Buddha.
Organizers
The History of Japanese Photography is jointly organized by the Japan Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The curators are Anne Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH; Dana Friis-Hansen, chief curator of the Austin Museum of Art; Joe Takeba of the Nagoya City Art Museum; and Ryuichi Kaneko of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.
Catalogue
An illustrated catalogue, published by Yale University Press, accompanies the exhibition. It includes six essays, a comprehensive chronology, annotated lists of major camera clubs and magazines, a bibliography, and artist biographies. The book will be available for $65 in hardcover and $50 in softcover at the MFAH Shops.
Symposium
Japanese Photography: A Distinctive Aesthetic, a symposium examining the themes underlying research for the exhibition, will be held from 1-6 p.m. on Saturday, March 1 in Brown Auditorium Theater on the lower level of the Caroline Wiess Law Building. Speakers and their topics are: Kaneko Ryuichi, guest curator, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, The Origins and Development of Japanese Art Photography; Takeba Joe, curator, Nagoya City Art Museum, The Age of Modernism: From Visualization to Socialization; Dana Friss-Hansen, The Dr. and Mrs. Ernest C. Butler Executive Director, Austin Museum of Art, Japanese Photography Since 1980: Internationalization, Individualism, and the Institutionalization of Photography; Hatakeyama Naoya, renowned Japanese photographer, On My Work; and Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH, Japanese Photography in the Context of Western Imagery. The symposium, which is open to the public and free with general museum admission, concludes with a reception and viewing of the exhibition.
Tour Schedule
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 2 - April 27, 2003
The Cleveland Museum of Art, May 18 - July 27, 2003
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON
Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street, Houston, Texas
