What is Genius? Masahisa Fukase.

A radical photographer since the 1960s, Masahisa Fukase has been languishing behind the scenes for nearly a quarter of a century. This spring shed some light on the mystery of his 'inactivity'.

KYOTOGRAPHIE, Kyoto’s international photography festival, ran from 14 April until 13 May this year, marking its sixth anniversary. Among the featured photographers was Masahisa Fukase, who grew out of the 1960s alongside greats such as Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama. In 1992, a fall left him in an unconscious state, diminishing the visibility of much of his work until now.

Fukase’s exhibit was one of the main features of the programmes at this year’s KYOTOGRAPHIE. The exhibit showed over two-hundred and fifty photographs including some many vintage prints that hadn’t been displayed for years. We spoke with the curators working on this event: Tomo Kosuga, the Masahisa Fukase Archives curator; and Simon Baker, the director of the the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

‘This was the first retrospective exhibition in Japan since his death. Over a period of thirty years, Fukase actually pursued themes of ‘self-representation’ that he could express through photography. He was born the oldest son of a family in Hokkaido that had been running a photography studio since his grandfather’s time, but he moved to Tokyo to study in the photography department at the Nihon University College of Art. He remained n Tokyo to work as a photographer for advertisements while privately seeking to give an account of his place in the world by photographing his life and surroundings. Everyone who served as his subjects were important people to Fukase. On the one hand he was creating peerless masterpieces through his passion for photography, and how he pushed his subjects to their limits, but on the other hand, arguably, this passion made him a thoroughly lonely person. This loneliness is also connected to his separation from his wife in 1976 and escape to his hometown in Hokkaido where he took pictures of ravens for no apparent reason. For the next ten years Fukase continued to photograph these birds that are often perceived negatively by people but which were, for Fukase, really projections of himself’, says Tomo Kosuga, speaking of Fukase’s ‘Ravens’, which was a big part of KYOTOGRAPHIE.

“Ravens’ subsequently became Fukase’s representative masterpiece, his best known work, and a monumental moment in the history of Japanese photography, that has come to be highly regarded around the world. The series however, is known for its black and white photographs (as he published in the book), and most people don’t know that he took colour photographs of ravens and even polaroids. In addition to the black and white photographs in ‘Ravens’, the colour prints and polaroids were added to the exhibition’, Simon Baker says.

‘Private Scenes ’92’, which was shown at the Ginza Nikon Salon in 1992, and is considered the work that defines Fukase’s personal outlook on the world. The exhibit was his last and included four-hundred-fifty pieces that filled the gallery walls. The majority of these photos were Fukase’s self-portraits. Tomo Kosuga felt that this was one of the highlights of this year’s KYOTOGRAPHIE.

‘This exhibition had part of Fukase’s final works from ‘Private Scenes ’92’ on display. Unlike anything else he photographed, whether it was animals like ravens and cats, or the people around him like his wife or immediate family, the self-portraits that he took during his later years express his self-representation point of view unlike anything else. This accomplishment in 1992 completed one aspect of his self-representative photography, but unfortunately the accident he had in the same year brought his activities as an artist to a close. By coming to see this exhibition, people could see just how special these final pieces that he left to the world really are. I think that this is the greatest feature of this exhibition’, says Tomo Kosuga.

The Fukase show in Kyoto was concerned with themes such as love and loneliness, death, performance, ‘selfies’, play, and comedy. Even though Fukase was one of post-war Japan’s most radical and edgy photographers, much of his work didn’t see the light of day for nearly a quarter of a century. This year’s event shed some light on the mystery of Masahisa Fukase.