Rupture, Reconnection: The Photography of Eikoh Hosoe (Video)

On October 9, Aperture Foundation and Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery hosted a panel discussion on the career and influence of Eikoh Hosoe, widely acknowledged as a pioneer of expressionistic post-World War II Japanese photography. Spanning over fifty years, Hosoe’s work explored the human body’s physicality as a subject that reveals a shifting interior landscape of dreams and desires.

Panelists Russet Lederman, Kunié Sugiura, and Charles Traub shared their knowledge as researchers, critics, and fellow artists on Hosoe’s work from the 1960s onward. Traub and Sugiura concentrated on the influence of Hosoe’s work on their generation, while Lederman introduced an overview of Hosoe as a post-war photographer, focusing on Hosoe’s role as a teacher and catalyst for an East-West dialogue. Alongside Hosoe’s photographs, an excerpt from his 1960 film Heso to genbaku (Navel and A-Bomb) was shown during the discussion.

This panel was made possible with the support of Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, and was presented in conjunction with that gallery’s exhibition, Eikoh Hosoe: Curated Body 1959–1970, which was on view September 12–October 19.

View “The Photography of Eikoh Hosoe, Part 2, Part 3, & Part 4” on Vimeo.

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Eikoh Hosoe’s work is now available in Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s (Aperture, 2009), Kamaitachi (Aperture, 2009), and in the Awakenings Portfolio.