Eikoh Hosoe, Photographer Who Elevated the Avant-Garde in Post War Japan Dies at 91

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“Ordeal by Roses, No. 32,” 1961.Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

Otherworldly Images of Postwar Japan

Working with a group of talented collaborators, Eikoh Hosoe redefined what it meant to be a photographer.

“Ordeal by Roses, No. 32,” 1961.Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

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By Penelope Green

 The New York Times

• Eikoh Hosoe, who died on Sept. 16 in Tokyo, was part of a group of avant-garde artists in postwar Japan who were determined to create a new visual language.
  Working like a film director or an improv coach, he coaxed narratives out of his extraordinary collaborators, who included the choreographer and dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, a founder of butoh, a ghostly new form of dance theater; the celebrated ultranationalist author Yukio Mishima; and the gender-fluid performer and puppeteer Simon Yotsuya.
  Together, they made images that explored gender and desire, sex and death, and mythology.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Armed with his camera,” wrote Yasufumi Nakamori, the editor of a 2021 monograph on the photographer, “Hosoe created a rupture in the conventional time and space of reality” — a portal through which he invited his collaborators to perform and experiment.                                                                                                                                                                          Here is a collection of his work.
  
  
  
                                  
  

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Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

In an early series, Mr. Hosoe photographed nudes as if they were sculptural objects, arranging them into haunting still lifes. (“Man and Woman, No. 33,” above, was produced in 1960.)

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Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

Inspired by images of Mr. Hijikata dancing, Mr. Mishima asked the photographer to imagine him in the same way. They collaborated to produce a series that Mr. Mishima called “Ordeal by Roses”; Mr. Hosoe described it as “a subjective documentary.” (“Ordeal by Roses, No. 6,” above, was produced in 1961.)

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Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

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 The theme of “Ordeal by Roses,” Mr. Hosoe told The Guardian in 2016, “was ultimately life and death through Yukio Mishima, borrowing his flesh and using a rose as a visible symbol of beauty and thorns.” (Above, “Ordeal by Roses, No. 15,” 1961. 

Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

In the mid-1960s, Mr. Hosoe and Mr. Hijikata began investigating the legend of the Kamaitachi, an evil spirit that takes the shape of a weasel as it haunts rice fields and menaces unsuspecting farmers. Together they traveled to rural Japan, where Mr. Hijikata played the part of the weasel racing through the countryside. (“Kamaitachi, No. 39,” above, was part of a series of images made in 1968.)

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Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

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Credit...Eikoh Hosoe

With the Kamaitachi series, Mr. Hosoe attempted to photograph Mr. Hijikata in “his true form,” he said, “as never captured before, in some place that was neither studio nor stage.” (“Kamaitachi, No. 8,” left, and “Kamaitachi, No. 22” were both made in 1965.)

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Credit...Estate Eikoh Hosoe. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.

Simon Yotsuya, an avant-garde actor who often performed in drag, was another of Mr. Hosoe’s muses. Together, they created “Simon (Lips)” in 1971.

Penelope Green is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk. More about Penelope Green