HITOSHI FUGO
ON THE CIRCLE
Published by akaaka-sha, 2012
Book Size 26 × 30 cm
Pages 116 pages
Hardcover
Art Director
Mafuyu Iwamoto + Hitoshi Yamazaki (SAI)
It's not unusual for Hitoshi Fugo to use his photography as an extensive 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 galaxy-like configurations of light in its tiny nooks and crannies. With "On the Circle," Fugo has left the world of the frying pan, but he's still photographing in a fundamentally experimental way. In this work, he's set his camera up on a small circular patch of artificial grass, and taken all of his photographs from a slightly elevated perspective, looking down at the curve of this patch as it meets the dirt around it. From this starting point, Fugo's photographs cover a broad range of subjects and styles. Sometimes he takes what appear to be straightforward portraits, but he also plays with the scene, in a Surrealist style: he's introduced many different objects into his photographs, and in a particularly striking image, three women in swimsuits appear to execute a freestyle stroke across the circle. After discovering the universe in a frying pan, Fugo has returned to a circular area more in line 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 text by the photographer.
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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 little 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, watching the curve of that patch as it meets the dirt around it. From this starting point, Fugo’s photographs span 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.