I’ve long admired the Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe, and, having never seen a solo show of his work, I’m looking forward to the upcoming exhibition “Eikoh Hosoe: Curated Body 1959-1970,” at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery. Hosoe just turned eighty, and this year marks the fortieth anniversary of his first solo exhibition in New York, at Light Gallery. The works on view in “Curated Body” are from Hosoe’s series “Man and Woman” (1959-1960) and “Embrace” (1969-1970), and I was curious about how Hosoe sees these pieces now, half a decade after their creation. “I wanted to express strength and beauty by photographing the human body,” he said. “I have the same viewpoint and thoughts now; my style never changed, and I want to continue challenging myself. I feel I haven’t yet achieved my goal.” When I asked if specific events had shaped his work, Hosoe told me, “My memories of the evacuation in the Yamagata Prefecture during the Second World War informed the ‘Kamaitachi’ series”—from 1969—“and my anger about the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the war were reflected in my short experimental film from 1960 ‘Navel and A-Bomb.’ ”
Above is a selection from “Eikoh Hosoe: Curated Body 1959-1970,” which opens on September 12th at Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, in Chelsea.
All photographs courtesy the artist and Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery and Howard Greenberg Gallery.
