Eikoh Hosoe
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Eikoh Hosoe (細江英公, Hosoe Eikō; b. 18 March 1933 in Yonezawa, Yamagata) is a Japanese photographer and filmmaker who emerged in the experimental arts movement of post-WWII Japan. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality. Through his friendships and artistic collaborations he is linked with the writer Yukio Mishima and 1960s avant-garde artists such the dancer Tatsumi Hijikata.
In 1960, Hosoe created the Jazz Film Laboratory (Jazzu Eiga Jikken-shitsu) with Hijikata, Shuji Terayama, and Shomei Tomatsu. The Jazz Film Laboratory was a multidisciplinary artistic project aimed at producing highly expressive and intense works such as Hosoe's 1960 short black and white film Navel and A-Bomb (Heso to genbaku).
With Hijikata, Hosoe created Kamaitachi, a series of images that reference stories of a supernatural being — 'weasel-sickle' — that haunted the Japanese countryside of Hosoe's childhood. In the photographs, Hijikata is seen as a wandering ghost mirroring the stark landscape and confronting farmers and children.
With Mishima as a model, Hosoe created a series of dark, erotic images centered on the male body, Ordeal by Roses (Bara-kei, 1963). The series (set in Mishima's Tokyo house) positions Mishima in sacrificial, promiscuous, wretched, and cruel states. Mishima would follow his fantasies, eventually committing suicide by seppuku in 1970.
Hosoe has been the director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts (Kiyosato, Yamanashi) since its opening in 1995.
Books of Hosoe's works
- Ba-ra-kei: Ordeal by Roses. New York: Aperture, 2002. ISBN 0893811696
- Eikoh Hosoe. Aperture Masters of Photography. New York: Aperture, 1999. ISBN 0893818240
- Kamaitachi. New York: Aperture, 2006. ISBN 1931788804
- A Place Called Hiroshima. Kodansha America, 1990. ISBN 0870119613 Text by Betty Lifton
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