Masahisa Fukase : “The Solitude of Ravens” (Photography)

Masahisa Fukase is considered to be both a legend and an enigma in his native Japan. For a culture that is traditionally reluctant to expose emotion in public, the expressionistic character of his work was, in part, the result of the development of the generation that evolved after WWII. Fukase growing up in a decade in which mannered self-control was not the ideal civic behavior. This new perspective, coupled with the effects of war, exploded into the avant-garde scene in Tokyo. Inelegant printing techniques emerged and the manic style of photography that he shared with his contemporaries, such as Eikoh Hosoe, Daidoh Moriyama, and Shomei Tomatsu, reflected the “reaction to a world turned upside down.”

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“The Solitude of Ravens”
Gelatin silver print
Masahisa Fukase
16 x 20″
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Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase’s expressionist photo series on the species of ravens represents a ten-year-obsession with the dark-edged worlds of ravens, shot on annual trips from Tokyo to Hokkaido, Fukase’s birthplace. Clearly the omen of misfortune, that has been traditionally assigned to ravens in almost all cultures, reigns over the sombre photographs taken. These display isolated or massive groupings of ravens, variously appearing at night or by day throughout a diverse Japanese landscape. Sitting on telephone poles, at the beach or on the edges of villages, the ravens’ immutable and terrifying presence permeates these photographs with signs of potential, impending or sure loss. The darkened nature of the pictures might not be coincidental regarding that they were taken in a period of personal pain and suffering after the photographer’s divorce in 1976. Fukase’s works are part of the Japanese new photography that is wrenched into different forms based on the spirit of personal experience and contrasting the earlier ideal of mannered self-control [Extract : Artnet]

Masahisa Fukase : Wirtz Gallery

Masahisa Fukase : Robert Mann Gallery

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