The Minerva Room of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, presents Ravens by Masahisa Fukase. The work of the artist, considered one of the most radical and experimental photographers of the Japanese post-war generation, is presented for the first time in Spain. The exhibition, which is part of the PHotoESPAÑA framework, will be open to the public until September of this year.
Masahisa Fukase (1934-2012) became world famous for his photographic series Ravensalso known as The loneliness of the crows. However, most of his work remained almost unpublished for more than two decades. In 1992, a tragic fall left the artist with permanent brain damage, and it was not until after his death, in 2012, that the files were revealed.. Fukase worked almost exclusively in series. According to Tomo Kosuga, director of the Masahisa Fukase Archives and curator of the exhibition: “He incorporates his own life experiences of loss, love, loneliness and depression into his work in a surprisingly playful way. The images of him are personal and very intimate, over the years, his wife Yoko, his dying father or his cat Sasuke, appeared regularly in visual narratives, sometimes humorous, sometimes somber. Towards the end of his working life, the photographer turned the camera more and more towards himself, being a pioneer of photography of the Self.
Lorenzo Torres, also curator of the exhibition and responsible for the series’ journey to Spain, tells us: «I visited the Tokyo Museum of Photography, which is also a large research center, with an impressive archive, especially of Japanese photography. . I was fortunate to access Fukase’s archive and learn his perspective. His work is very varied, he also works a lot with color, humor and eroticism.. But without a doubt his most important series is Ravens, and I thought it was the one to bring. It caught my attention stylistically because even though it covers a decade (1975-1986), it is very uniform. To make it a reality, the help of Tomo Kosuga was essential, because Japan is a country as wonderful as it is difficult to access. In this series Fukase crystallizes pain, but also things that were to come.
The series, made up of 36 photographs, explores loneliness, melancholy and obsession in a considered “dramatic personal journey.”. The Japanese artist Akira Hasegawa noted about the work: «The depth of loneliness in Fukase’s photographs is shocking. It is a darkly fascinating and obsessive work that lodges in the mind. The importance of Ravens, a series that is exhibited exclusively in Spain for the first time, also lies according to Kosuga: «In its ability to evoke emotions and existential reflections from the artist’s inner search. And by identifying himself with the crows, he invites us to explore the human soul.
Innovative
The exhibition is located in the Minerva Room, adjacent to the Goya Room of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, where it is currently exhibited Perpetuum mobile. For Torres: «In all the photos in the exhibition, movement represents a central element, which fits perfectly with the theme chosen this year by the festival. Fukase burst onto the Japanese photography scene in the sixties of the 20th century, challenging the conventions of the time. and exploring emotional and personal issues in a society in transformation. He was an innovator in the dissemination of his work, through magazines and photobooks.
In Arles, in 2017, Fukase: The Incurable Egoist, the artist’s first retrospective in Europe, which allowed much unpublished material from his work to leave Japan for the first time. In the images of Ravensthe coastal landscapes of Hokkaido, his hometown, and other areas of Japan, serve as the backdrop for his deeply dark and impressionistic photographs. The work has also been interpreted as a sinister allegory of post-war Japan.. In 2010 the British Journal of Photography asked a group of experts, including the likes of photographer Chis Killip and writer and curator Gerry Badger, to choose the best photobook of the last 25 years. Won Ravensin front of Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin, also published in 1986.
