Eikoh Hosoe Captures Surreal Body-spirit Landscapes

May 01, 1992|By Mary Sue Mohnke.

Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe explores all manner of surreal landscapes-those of the spirit, human body, countryside and city. He is best known for his photographs of the enigmatic Japanese novelist, playwright and actor Yukio Mishima and for his formal and often abstract nudes.

Hosoe`s distinctly personal work is characterized by high-contrast black- and-white images that are stylized, mysterious and often grainy. Although Hosoe has been internationally known for 30 years, the exhibit that runs through May 30 at the Catherine Edelman Gallery, 300 West Superior St., is the first Midwest showing of his work.

Concentrating on the first part of his career, ``Eikoh Hosoe: A Survey Exhibition`` includes silver prints from four of his most admired series:

``Man and Woman,`` ``Barakei: Ordeal by Roses,`` ``Kamaitachi`` and

``Embrace.`` Each combines classical and avant-garde elements while remaining true to Japanese aesthetics and sensibilities.

``For me, photography is the art of revealing the relationship between photographer and subject matter,`` Hosoe says.

The earliest works in the exhibit, from his 1960 ``Man and Woman``

series, focus on relations between the sexes. Hosoe took the photographs not long after seeing Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of the mentally and physically demanding Butoh dance form, perform ``Kinjiki,`` a daring work inspired by Mishima`s novel ``Forbidden Colors.``

Hosoe and Hijikata became friends and Hosoe began to photograph the Butoh dancers regularly. The models for ``Man and Woman`` were all Butoh dancers.

``The beauty, strength and power of the human body is too often ignored in favor of an emphasis on the human spirit,`` says Hosoe. ``We should place more value on the human body and seek a balance between the spiritual and the physical.``

Among the most unsettling works in ``Man and Woman`` is No. 20, in which a woman`s head is grasped firmly by a man`s side-stretched arm. The man`s head is unseen, with only half his dramatically lit torso visible, and the ink-black background makes the woman`s head appear disembodied.

Hosoe`s 1963 book of photographs, ``Barakei: Ordeal by Roses``

(originally mistranslated as ``Killed by Roses``), perhaps his best-known visual narrative, reveals the erotic, morbid and often contradictory sides of Mishima, who committed ritual suicide in 1970. Surreal and dense, the high-contrast photographs tell a story of life, death and rebirth through the camera`s voyeuristic eye.

The series features a tremendous variety of techniques, including straight photography, bird`s-eye view, double printing and high-contrast copy negatives.

In one complex picture, Mishima`s shadowed figure, clad only in a samurai loincloth, is seated at a baroque table, one elbow propped up on it. Slashes and ellipses of brilliant light flood his feet and the lower two-thirds of the body of a baby, who appears to be pushing at one of the table legs.

Other photographs reveal Mishima, who vowed to never surrender to the

``decay of the flesh,`` wrapped in a black rubber hose and lying on a zodiac mosaic in his garden; bare-chested and clad only in sunglasses and blue jeans, pondering a rose and superimposed upon a Renaissance painting of a woman`s face; and in the best-known image in the series, fierce and mysterious, smelling a rose while taunting the camera with his eyes.

Hosoe has often said that he was interested in deconstructing the myth of Mishima, and he succeeded brilliantly. Since many of the Barakei photographs are at odds with the image Mishima cultivated throughout his life and many foreshadow his death, fascination with them has never abated. But why would a man who stood for the warrior ideal and Japanese nationalism agree to such submissive poses?

``In Barakei, Mishima was only subject matter,`` Hosoe explains. ``The photos document my own imagination and vision of truth about him. Mishima said that for a long time, he was dreaming of such an opportunity. He spent most of his days in the position of playwright and stage director, always creating and directing things. He`d never been ordered about by somebody.``

The second edition of ``Barakei,`` which Mishima had helped to design, was issued the year after he committed suicide. ``Mishima was a great artist, but sometimes I don`t like to be associated with him too much,`` Hosoe confesses. ``We are two different people.``

Hosoe`s 1969 ``Kamaitachi`` series is represented by just two photographs in the Edelman exhibit. Part myth and part autobiography, it drew on a Japanese folk tale that Hosoe had heard from farmers during the two childhood years he spent in the countryside after being evacuated from Tokyo during World War II.

Hosoe used Hijikata to tell the story of a demon who haunts the rice fields, frightening and amusing villagers, and finally gaining his revenge. The imagery reflects the horrific events of the concluding war years and serves as a visual ode to fear and foreboding.