With regard to the case of looking at photographs, here too a new way is required. Photography is steadily changing from a “thing that is seen” into a thing that is read. Today, as the story told by any number of photographs lined up next to each other becomes more important, appreciating the skill of an individual photograph has become equivalent to appreciating only the mask of a noh play—this way of looking at things now comes from an absolutely different position. The way of looking at the noh mask as an art object and the way of looking at noh as a single play have clearly separated. At this point, there is no need to worry about understanding the “good or bad” of photography. It is not necessary that everyone be able to comment on the sculptural-artistic qualities of a noh mask. It would be good to view photography with the same feeling as going to a movie or reading a letter.

From 写真の読みかた (The Way of Reading Photographs), published posthumously by Iwanami in 1962 (it was written in 1958). This book hasn’t been translated.

I think it would be an understatement to call Natori an “important” figure in the history of Japanese photography. As this scholarly (but legible and well-researched) article ¹ explains, his activities during the war demand close scrutiny.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe leaves Yasukuni Shrine, 12/26/13

If you are interested in Japanese political news, I highly recommend the Shingestu News Agency, an independent agency based in Tokyo. The SNA Twitter feed ¹ is an excellent source for updates about important political issues facing Japan: nuclear power, Okinawa, nationalism and so on.

SNA has also launched a website ², though it’s a bit disorganized at the moment.

"Young Fighter Pilot and Mother"

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo ¹ is referred to as MOMAT, and I have often confused it with the similarly-abbreviated Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo ², known as MOT. Perhaps some of this confusion has arisen due to the strange position of the word “Tokyo,” which never seems to sit comfortably in either name. Perhaps it is simply due to the fact that the abbreviation “MOT” glosses over the two words (“Contemporary” and “Art”) that would help to distinguish it from Tokyo’s other myriad Museums. In order to avoid any confusion I have often referred to MOMAT and MOT by the names of their nearest train stations (Takebashi, Kiyosumi-Shirakawa). In any case, given the impressive way that MOMAT has revamped its permanent collection, I am confident that I won’t have any such trouble remembering it in the future.

The museum itself says that its collection is not so much revamped as “Reborn!” ³, and I think the results warrant such excitement. Before this rebirth, I would sometimes visit the collection’s photography section to see some modern masters, but there were no links to other galleries; each room was its own isolated world. Now, the rooms are ordered chronologically and connected by a clear story which performs the valuable service of explaining the development of modern Japanese art. Surprisingly, this story is built around Japan’s participation in World War II. The jargon-free wall text (designed by Kazunari Hattori of Osiris ⁴ fame) situates the works in light of Japan’s modernization and militarization, and does not shy away from explaining pro-expansionist allegories when they exist. Panels at the entrance to each room give the viewer a rough idea of the cultural and political situation around that time.

The room of wartime material is particularly impressive. Two large-scale, bombastic paintings hang on one wall. These paintings (one of which shows the infamous Battle of Saipan ⁵ in a heroic light) were confiscated by US troops after the war, but they are currently on “indefinite loan” to Japan under the terms of an agreement negotiated in the 1970s; MOMAT was entrusted with their restoration and preservation. A painting that offers a veiled criticism of the war hangs on the other side of the room, while women’s magazines during the war sit in a vitrine in the center. Almost as a rule, museums in Japan tend to avoid touching on Japan’s military history, so it really is unusual for a major institution like MOMAT to address this topic with such frankness. I wonder if MOMAT will lead from the front in this regard.

In any case, I am happy to see the museum making such an effort to communicate clearly with its viewers, rather than throwing some works together and connecting them only with opaque explanations—or not connecting them at all. My understanding is that the permanent collection will remain more or less intact, with only the later rooms changing to complement the museum’s special exhibitions; when I went last week, Josef Koudelka was showing upstairs, so these rooms were showing other work from Eastern Europe. Obviously I highly recommend a visit to the Reborn! permanent collection. Keep in mind that it’s free on the first Monday of each month!

I was sad to hear the news of Eichi Ohtaki’s passing on December 30 of last year. I first discovered Ohtaki three or four years ago when I heard his songs playing over the speakers of ZACK, a recycle shop in Sugnami-ku known to at least a couple readers of this blog.  Since then, Ohtaki’s American-influenced songs have come back into my head once or twice a year. Here are a couple of those songs:

This is from an interview published in the March 1988 issue of Eureka (ユリイカ).

In the end, the world is a confused web of sight-lines, and this has been given an absolutely material form by photography. Because it is possible to take any number of photographs, a photograph is nothing more than one out of an endless number. If we think in this way, we will understand that photographs can only be produced out of a flood of images. Usually, it is thought that photographs produce this flood. But the birth of a photograph itself presupposes a flood of images—in other words, noise or chaos.

The last sunset of 2013

I may have said it in years past, but 2014 will be a big one for me. Among other things, I am looking forward to sharing a lot more writing.

With that in mind, I am happy to announce that, after years of planning and programming, Marc Feustel and I have launched Papercuts ¹, a site for long-form writing about photography. Among the articles currently up on the site is an interview with Thomas Demand ² that I did in 2012.

This started out as a list of photography books I liked, but now it’s just a list of “things.”

Go Itami, Study ¹. Rondade. Design by The Simple Society ². Great book design. I think this book will be worth a lot in the future.

Taisuke Koyama, The City Breathes and Ages ³. Maybe my favorite book, because it’s cheap (¥1000) and uses an unusual form (the children’s book).

Naoya Hatakeyama, Kesengawa. Light Motiv. Wrote a couple of words about it here ⁴.

Mika Kitamura, Einmal ist keinmal ⁵. Therme. Snap’s not dead.

Takuma Nakahira, Gecko. Little Big Man. I meant to write lots more about how good the Japanese books coming out of Little Big Man have been, but this book sold out so quickly that I just didn’t get around to it. The Keizo Kitajima book from last year, USSR 1991, is incredible.

Shomei Tomatsu, Make ⁶. Super Labo. Just really good.

Kyoungtae Kim, On the Rocks ⁷. Your Mind. Wait, maybe this was my favorite book, and not just because it was cheap.

Lieko Shiga, Rasen Kaigan. Akaaka. I saw the exhibit the first week of January, and probably didn’t see anything better the rest of the year. This book is the catalog of that exhibition.

Kitai Kazuo Slideshow, Earth DOM. This might have been as good as Shiga’s exhibit in terms of the impact it had on me, the sense of experiencing something great, not in the totalized Wagnerian sense but in a fragmented way.

Kazuo Yoshida, “TB” at hpgrp. Yoshida is going to do big things.

The first room of Issei Suda’s show at Syabi. Like a black and white Rinko Kawauchi, and I mean this in a good way.

Kayo Ume’s installation of Jiichamsama at her Tokyo Opera City show.

Chu-ha Chung’s speaking event.

Hiroko Komatsu’s show at photographers’ gallery.

Taisuke Koyama’s installation in Shodoshima.

Wataru Yamamoto, “Drawing a Line” at photographers’ gallery and “Plane Tree Observations” at Yumiko Chiba.

Keiji Uematsu, “Cutting‐Axis・Latitude・Longitude” at Yumiko Chiba.

The “Out of Doubt” exhibit at Mori Art Museum, a great attempt to locate some kind of consciousness in contemporary Japanese art.

Talking about baseball with Seung Woo Back.

Generational solidarity.

Being able to read Japanese.

Showing my parents and my sister around Japan.

Kathryn Abbe, “Light and Shadow” at Tosei-sha.

Kathryn Abbe, “Light and Shadow” at Tosei-sha.

"Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, 8/7/2013" © Keiko Sasaoka

I have not mentioned Keiko Sasaoka ¹ on this blog before, but I just saw her recent exhibit at photographers’ gallery, “Difference 3.11,” and I think that this could become an essential work of post 3/11 photography.

This photo was my favorite.

Next Tuesday, December 10, Kazuo Kitai ¹ will hold a combination photography slideshow / death metal concert at Earthdom ² in Shin-Okubo, one of Tokyo’s best-known metal “live houses.” This is the third metal slideshow he’s held, I missed the first two but I’m planning to go next week. You can find a video of the last one on YouTube. I don’t want to post it here, partially because the quality is not great, but mostly because this probably something that you can only grasp through through experience.

It’s no secret that I really respect Kitai, but even so: at age 69, staging a performance of your work at Earthdom is very radical. I’m excited.

© Motoyuki Daifu

Motoyuki Daifu ¹ was nominated for the Fifth Prix Pictet ², along with some huge names: Rineke Dijkstra, Allan Sekula, Boris Mikhailov, etc. Well done!

I wrote about Daifu’s work for American Photo ³ in April of this year.