Masahisa Fukase
Private Scenes
Published by Atelier EXB in 2023
First Edition
Size: 24.5 x 19.5 cm
192 Pages
Hardcover
Languages: French
This publication by Masahisa Fukase presents for the first time the entirety of his final Private Scenes series, in which the artist explores the relationship between photographer and subject. Beginning in 1985, he included himself in the photographed scene, whether in Paris, London, Brussels, or his daily life in Tokyo. He then painted colored lines over these images, creating surprising visual effects, and left the date visible on his photographs.
One of his latest series, entitled Private Scenes, which highlights the photographs taken by the artist, over a year, in 1989, in different places around the world and in which he included himself.
One of the most radical and original figures of his generation, Masahisa Fukase is a world-renowned Japanese photographer, notably thanks to his 1986 book, The Solitude of Ravens, in which the crows photographed by the artist become the true symbols of his sadness and lost love as his marriage to his wife Yoko collapses.
This new publication shows one of his latest series, entitled Private Scenes, which highlights the photographs taken by the artist, over a year, in 1989, in different places around the world (Paris, London, Brussels, etc.) and in which he included himself, taking a photo of himself in front of his subject, thus questioning the relationship that develops between the person taking the photo and the person being photographed. He then paints lines of color on these shots, creating surprising visual effects.
Later, in this same series, he would photograph scenes of daily life, this time in Tokyo, changing cameras and adding the date to his photographs, but continuing to represent himself in the image.
This book chooses to be exhaustive by reproducing, for the first time, all the photographs making up this original series, where we can see a new dimension of Fukase's work, that of the artist grappling with his medium.
The photographs are accompanied by a text by Masako Toda, a Japanese photography specialist, which allows us to rediscover the artist's final series, who himself declared in the last years of his career that he could not "stop putting himself in the photo."
Several texts by Masako Toda, historian and specialist in Japanese photography, and Tomo Kosuga, director of the Masahisa Fukase archives, shed light on this iconic and still little-known series of his work.