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The Resistant Photographer Hiromi Tsuchida’s photography has been both revolutionary and indefinable. To see why, you must see it all in perspective.
A photograph can say a lot. As the cliché goes: “A picture says a thousand words.” But a photograph can also say very little; sometimes even nothing at all. Like any piece of art, its message depends on the artist. But taking that message to heart, hearing what a photo has to say—now that relies entirely on us. The ambiguous dialogue between artist and audience could define the career of photographer Hiromi Tsuchida. He is celebrated in many parts of the world and virtually unheard of in others. He has been called revolutionary, even as he seeks out subject matter and techniques that seemingly contradicts the description. A collection of his work now on display at the Michael Dawson Gallery in West L.A. tries to satisfy these conflicts. The exhibit spans nearly four decades of Tsuchida’s career and is organized not to describe him chronologically, but stylistically. On a recent visit, a young couple provided a perfect visual image of his career. After slowly traveling the length of the gallery, they wheeled back, curious, to see the collection again from the beginning. His mother stayed at home to care for the farm while his father worked outside as a train driver. Although he excelled at art as a child and into his high school years, he eventually focused on a chemistry degree in college. He was serious enough about it to dedicate eight years at a cosmetics company upon graduation. Photography became more of a hobby for Tsuchida. He had been interested in photography for years—he bought his first camera, a Minolta, during his freshman year of college—but his passion for it was always recreationally vested. “At college, I was studying science so I didn’t have a chance to study art,” said Tsuchida. “To me, photography was a medium I could take in causally without official education, so that’s how I decided to use photography to express myself.” Eventually, his infatuation for the medium inspired him to begin taking classes. At the age of 25—while he was still working at the cosmetics firm—he enrolled in a local photography school. There he became enamored by the work of American photographer Robert Frank. One of the foremost photographers of his time, Frank’s work was significant because it portrayed subjects outside the mainstream fray—the lower class, minorities—as well as their polar opposites. His images were ironic and striking in their contrast. And bracing as well, considering his work was contrary to the optimism of the 1950’s and precluded the staggering realism in art brought about by racial tension in the 1960’s. A collection of photos Frank took during a two-year road trip across the country brought him instant fame in art circles. “The Americans” was embraced by young artists and photographers and was popularized by the burgeoning Beat community—Jack Kerouac wrote the book’s foreward. Eventually, a copy found its way to Tsuchida in Japan. “[‘Americans’] is not necessarily political, but expresses Frank’s philosophy as a photographer, and that deeply touched me. From Frank’s photos, I learned that as a photographer I needed to know who exactly the Japanese were. I wanted to express through my photos who I am and what kind of a culture and society I was born into.” Tsuchida began photographing regional Japanese festivals and religious events. Coming from a rural background, his time in the cities inspired him to capture the folk and agricultural values, which have been preserved in the countryside for centuries. These festivals offered Tsuchida dynamic subject with which to explore his ideas about Japanese identity—not to mention great visual media with which to cut his chops. From a Japanese perspective, folk festivals have a dual relationship culturally. Most of the matsuri festivals in Japan are organized and carried out exactly as they have been for the past several thousand years. The Japanese value tradition, especially anything representative of their historic culture. Japan is also a very modern country, economically and socially. Big city stock tickers share a likeness with Times Square and McDonalds franchises are as numerous as neighborhood ramen shops—more so in some places. Matsuri are a synthesis of these two values. Very few are held in urban areas so the majority of people visiting these festivals typically come from the cities. They are a spectacle of tradition, appreciated by crowds that for the most part have lived in a modern society. Culturally speaking, identity can be hard to define for a Japanese person. “I grew up in the countryside, so I wanted to capture the native and agricultural values and senses, which have been preserved among the Japanese for centuries.” Many of these photographs have been collected in his “Zokushin (Gods of the Earth)” project, which brought him international acclaim. Typically, images of matsuri are framed in romantic or idealized conceptions, but Tsuchida’s matsuri photographs were celebrated for their realism and candor. Much like Frank’s work became identified with the Beat generation, this reception also linked Tsuchida’s early work with a counter-culture art movement. This revolution had its roots in America. In the mid 1960’s and early 1970’s, museums in New York like the MOMA and George Eastman House began exhibiting a new form of photographic aesthetic. Spearheaded by artists like Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus, an aesthetic zeitgeist took over photography. These images were mostly framed horizontally, there was less of a focus on technical polish and personal affectation—and most importantly—the subjects were mundane, dairy objects and ordinary people. Images like these had never been so widely portrayed before. Inspired by this movement, Japanese photographers like Daido Moriyama and Yasumasa Morimura, brought the style home and defined their work as konpora shashin—contemporary Japanese photography. Because “Zokushin” was developed at the same time and presented its subjects in a similar light, Tsuchida’s first major project was hailed as a great achievement in konpora shashin. Though his early work exhibited certain konpora traits, Tsuchida has resisted being labeled as a konpora artist. “The konpora philosophy is that by taking pictures of random, daily objects without any particular theme, we can grasp concepts of the present time through these images,” he said. “Viewers are expected to look at the images without being exposed to a photographer’s subjectivity.” “But I don’t consider myself as a contemporary photographer. I always try to get myself involved, related to my subjects and use the relationship to reflect on my images. I try to impact my subjects’ normal, daily state by getting myself involved.” As his career progressed, Tsuchida’s work became harder to define generally. His choice of theme also became more ambitious. His next successful collection, “Counting Grains of Sand,” left the countryside to concentrate more on urban Japan. Satisfied for the time being with his existential inquiry into Japanese-ness, he focused on modern Japan. At the time, the country was undergoing a seismic economic shift referred to as the “bubble economy.” Salaries were doubled in a few years’ time and the country saw widespread economic growth. Tsuchida was fascinated by how this wave of money was changing urban culture so quickly. He framed thousands of images of huge crowds, inspired by the contrasting feelings of intimacy and aloofness inherent in big gatherings of people. He was also concerned with parts of the city that were being left behind by the fast-moving expansion—decaying parks and urban sprawl. Tsuchida finished “Counting Grains of Sand” in 1989 after he witnessed what he considered “the crowd to end all crowds”—the dense throngs of supporters who gathered outside the Imperial Palace during Emperor Hirohito’s last hours. In the mid-90’s when the bubble economy popped, he started another “Grains of project. Here, his career took on an entirely new dimension when he began creating large, vibrant color photographs with the help of Photoshop. For an artist who had spent most of his career working in black-and-white, this departure was shocking to some familiar with his work. Of course, his hard to define nature was hardly new. “He’s very well-established,” said Tomo Isoyama, a Japanese-born artist/photographer living in Los Angeles. “And it’s amazing that he still wants to explore his medium the way he is. His extensiveness is remarkable.” Those familiar with his work now would never associate him with the relative asceticism of the konpora school. Some of his images are so colorful they border on being surreal, hardly exhibiting the realism that propelled him to stardom. But as he has mentioned before, he never intended to be interpreted objectively. “Photographers think whatever is in a picture is the reality. However, as today’s photography acquires digital technology, it’s getting more and more obvious, that photos are not the reality. They are just a photographic reality. I try to constantly remind myself of that whenever I photograph something now.” Certainly it has been hard to define his work. He is renowned in art circles in Japan and Europe, yet he has never achieved this level of recognition in America. He has exhibited at many of the nation’s top museums and galleries, including the MOMA. He has admirers here, but his admiration is not widespread. One could reason that it his motivation for defining what it means to be Japanese that alienates admirers outside of Japan. Perhaps it is a conflict between western and eastern ideals in the sense he evokes with the title “Counting Grains of Sand.” Whereas the western ideal is to know the infinite—to be able to count every single grain of sand—those in the east do not wish to define the infinite, only to appreciate a grain of sand in the context of an entire beach. Perhaps it is just a clash of beliefs. • For now, he is content to concentrate on his future projects rather than the reception of his past. He is currently occupied with a project on walls around the world. He recently shot the Berlin Wall and he has been to Israel to photograph there. He also hopes to include pictures of the North-South Korea and U.S.-Mexico borders as well. As always, he is looking to expand on his previous work. While it has made it hard to define him, Tsuchida’s dynamism has never scared off his admirers. His Photoshop-assisted prints have even brought him a new generation of enthusiasts. Regardless of where those fans hail from, defining how to appreciate his art is not any different from that of any artist. One must keep an open mind and interpret what you see for yourself. It never hurts to have to look again. As Robert Frank once said, “When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” |
