Hitoshi Fugo - On the Circle

Hitoshi Fugo
On the Circle

Published by Akaaka-sha, 2012
Size: 26 × 30 cm
116 Pages
Hardcover

It's not unusual for Hitoshi Fugo to use his photography as an extended meditation on a single subject: his previous photobook, "Flying Frying Pan," was an entire series in which he looked at an old frying pan and discovered galactic configurations of light in its tiny nooks and crannies. With "On the Circle," Fugo has left the world of the frying pan behind, but he still photographs in a fundamentally experimental way. In this work, he set up his camera on a small, circular patch of artificial turf and took all of his photographs from a slightly elevated vantage point, observing the curve of that patch as it meets the surrounding dirt. From this starting point, Fugo's photographs cover a wide range of subjects and styles. Sometimes he takes what appear to be simple portraits, but he also plays with the scene, in a surrealist style: he has introduced many different objects into his photographs, and in one particularly striking image, three women in swimsuits seem to execute a free stroke across the circle. After discovering the universe in a frying pan, Fugo returned to a circular area more in keeping with the scale of the human body, but he continues to find new ways to present the familiar in an unfamiliar way.
Includes an English translation of the text by the photographer.