Kikuji Kawada

Kikuji Kawada (川田 喜久治, Kawada Kikuji, born 1933) is a Japanese photographer.^[1][2] He co-founded the Vivo photographic collective in 1959 with Akira Sato, Eikoh Hosoe, Ikko Narahara, Akira Tanno and Shomei Tomatsu.^[3] He was one of the fifteen artists selected for the “New Japanese Photography” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1974.^[4] He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 2011.^[5]

Life and work

Kawada's book Chizu (The Map) has been praised by critics. Brett Rogers, director of The Photographers' Gallery, London, has said it is a "deeply moving and highly original investigation into a seminal moment in Japanese history."^[6] In The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger describe Chizu (The Map) as being amongst four books that "constitute photography's most significant memorials to the defining event in twentieth-century Japanese history" and that it is "the ultimate photobook-as-object, combining a typical Japanese attention to the art of refined packaging with hard-hitting photography, text and typography – a true photo-text piece. No photobook has been more successful in combining graphic design with complex photographic narrative."^[7] Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said it is "perhaps the most intricately designed and powerfully evocative Japanese photobook ever [ . . . ] By turns impressionistic and surreal, the book demands a degree of patient, silent contemplation that echoes the act of remembering."^[6]

Publications

• Chizu (地図) = The Map.
  • Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha, 1965. Text by Kenzaburo Oe.
  • Tōkyō-to Chōfu-shi: Getsuyōsha, 2005. ISBN 9784901477161. Text in Japanese and English.
  • Tucson, AZ: Nazraeli Press, 2005. ISBN 9781590051238. Text in Japanese and English. Edition of 500 copies.
• ''ラスト・コスモロジー = The Last Cosmology.
  • ラスト・コスモロジー : 川田喜久治写真集 = The Last Cosmology : Photographs. Tōkyō: 491, 1995. OCLC 213343192
  • The Last Cosmology. London: Mack, 2015. ISBN 9781910164235.
• Kikuji Kawada. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1998. ISBN 9784000083737. Text in Japanese.
• Japan, 1951-1960. Nazraeli Press Six by Six, set 5 v. 3. Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2014. ISBN 9781590054024. Edition of 100 copies.

Awards

• Lifetime Achievement Award, Photographic Society of Japan awards.^[5]

Solo exhibitions

• Kikuji Kawada - The Last Cosmology, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, 1 December 2014 – 23 January 2015.^[8]

Exhibitions with others

• 1957: Jūnin no me (10人の眼, Eyes of ten), Konishiroku Photo Gallery, Tokyo, May 1957.^[9] Organised by Tatsuo Fukushima.
• 1974: New Japanese Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 27 March – 19 May 1974. Directed by John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi.^[4]
• 2014: Chizu = The Map book, and The Map 1959–1965 installation of 90 photographs, were included in Conflict, Time, Photography, Tate Modern, London, 26 November 2014 – 15 March 2015;^[10] Museum Folkwang, Essen, 10 April – 5 July 2015;^[11] Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden, Germany, 31 July – 25 October 2015.^[12]

References

1. ↑ O'Hagan, Sean (19 March 2015). "Dark night rising: the photographer who captured the mystery of the eclipse". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 April 2015. 
2. ↑ (Japanese) Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, editor. 328 Outstanding Japanese Photographers (『日本写真家事典』, Nihon shashinka jiten). Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2000. ISBN 4-473-01750-8
3. ↑ Kōtarō Iizawa, "The evolution of postwar photography" (chapter of Tucker et al., The History of Japanese Photography), pp. 217, 210.
4. 1 2 "New Japanese Photography", Museum of Modern Art. Accessed 5 January 2015.
5. 1 2 "Photographic Society of Japan Awards", Photographic Society of Japan. Accessed 5 January 2015.
6. 1 2 O'Hagan, Sean (19 October 2014). "Top of the shots: photographers' favourite photobooks". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2015. 
7. ↑ Martin Parr; Gerry Badger (2004). The Photobook: A History, Volume I. London: Phaidon. p. 274,286. ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1. 
8. ↑ "Kikuji Kawada - The Last Cosmology", Michael Hoppen Gallery. Accessed 5 January 2015.
9. ↑ "Case 2: Eyes of Ten and VIVO", Art Institute of Chicago. Accessed 6 January 2015.
10. ↑ "Conflict, Time, Photography". Tate Modern. Retrieved 19 October 2015. 
11. ↑ "Conflict, Time, Photography". Museum Folkwang. Retrieved 19 October 2015. 
12. ↑ "Conflict, Time, Photography". Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Retrieved 19 October 2015.