Masahisa Fukase and the sorrow of lost love, solitude and death
Masahisa Fukase’s sorrow seeps through his later photographs like a poison: painful, suffocating, and all consuming. For eight years, the Japanese photographer obsessively captured ravens in his native Hokkaido, vainly seeking an antidote to the venom of a failed marriage.
His second wife and muse Yōko left him in 1976, and a mournful Fukase careened into a crippling depression. Drinking heavily, the photographer found refuge in the birds that flocked around his local train station. Published in 1986, the photobook Ravens (or Karasu) was born from his heartbreak. Now, a rare collection of prints from this seminal series has been unveiled in a new exhibition opening this week at Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.
The grainy, monochromatic images make for compelling viewing. Ravens are considered ominous creatures in Japan and Fukase’s pictures are stained with a uneasy sense of misadventure. His portentous ravens are occasionally interjected with other subjects – the swollen underbelly of a passing aeroplane, for one – but they feel no less ill fated.
In one of the show’s most powerful photographs, the gnashing jaws of a garbage truck are captured mid-fury; rubbish trails across the sky with the same violence as a battlefield explosion. The image is an enigma much like Fukase, who seems to have captured it from inside the mouth of the beast-like vehicle.
The exhibition is a rare chance to see works printed by Fukase himself – a show with this many master prints is unusual. It offers a faint bond to the photographer, whose melancholy makes him seem otherwise unattainable.
It took six years to convince Fukase’s family to consent to the exhibition, explains gallery owner Michael Hoppen of the undertaking. ‘It’s a strange life, but an extraordinary body of work,’ he says of Ravens. ‘This project is bigger than us, it’s bigger than the gallery.’
The London gallery has also loaned prints from Fukase’s Bukubuku – a self-portrait series shot in his bathtub – to the Tate Modern for its show, ‘Peforming for the Camera’. Hoppen explains: ‘Bukubuku is all about him. They’re auto-portraits, or rather, auto-emotional portraits, because he found it very easy to express himself through his photographs.’ Like in Ravens, he seems a man possessed by an inescapable grief.
Ravens has previously been called the best photobook of the last 25 years, drawing universal acclaim from photography critics and Fukase’s peers alike. ‘He had legions and legions of followers,’ says Hoppen. ‘Certainly with him there’s tremendous reverence and fondness not only to this man but also to this body of work. It’s a shining beacon to many [photographers].’
Fukase was never able to escape the harbingers of misfortune he orbited so closely during Ravens, even though he eventually remarried. He had spent over half a decade circling the fringes of death and decay with his camera, before finally relinquishing the project in 1982 and declaring that he had ‘become a raven’. In 1992, he fell down the stairs of his favourite Tokyo haunt and spent the next – and final – 20 years of his life in a coma. The ravens had come to claim him at last.
INFORMATION
‘The Solitude of Ravens’ is on view until 23 April. For more information, visit Michael Hoppen Gallery’s website
Images © Masahisa Fukase Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery
ADDRESS
3 Jubilee Place
London SW3 3TD
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
The moments fashion met art at the 60th Venice Biennale
The best fashion moments at the 2024 Venice Biennale, with happenings from Dior, Golden Goose, Balenciaga, Burberry and more
By Jack Moss Published
-
Crispin at Studio Voltaire, in Clapham, is a feast for all the senses
New restaurant Crispin at Studio Voltaire is the latest opening from the brains behind Bistro Freddie and Bar Crispin, with interiors by Jermaine Gallagher
By Billie Brand Published
-
Vivienne Westwood’s personal wardrobe goes up for sale in landmark Christie’s auction
The proceeds of ’Vivienne Westwood: The Personal Collection’, running this June, will go to the charitable causes she championed during her lifetime
By Jack Moss Published
-
Kembra Pfahler revisits ‘The Manual of Action’ for CIRCA
Artist Kembra Pfahler will lead a series of classes in person and online, with a short film streamed from Piccadilly Circus in London, as well as in Berlin, Milan and Seoul, over three months until 30 June 2024
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Yinka Shonibare considers the tangled relationship between Africa and Europe at Serpentine South
Yinka Shonibare‘s ‘Suspended States’ at Serpentine South, London, considers history, refuge and humanitarian support (until 1 September 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Gavin Turk subverts still-life painting and says: ‘We are what we throw away’
Gavin Turk considers wasteful consumer culture in ‘The Conspiracy of Blindness’ at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London
By Rowland Bagnall Published
-
Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: Bloomsbury’s untold story
‘Dorothy Hepworth and Patricia Preece: An Untold Story’ is a new exhibition at Charleston in Lewes, UK, that charts the duo's creative legacy
By Katie Tobin Published
-
Don’t miss: Thea Djordjadze’s site-specific sculptures in London
Thea Djordjadze’s ‘framing yours making mine’ at Sprüth Magers, London, is an exercise in restraint
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘Accordion Fields’ at Lisson Gallery unites painters inspired by London
‘Accordian Fields’ at Lisson Gallery is a group show looking at painting linked to London
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Fetishism, violence and desire: Alexis Hunter in London
‘Alexis Hunter: 10 Seconds’ at London's Richard Saltoun Gallery focuses on the artist’s work from the 1970s, disrupting sexual stereotypes
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Wayne McGregor’s new work merges genetic code, AI and choreography
Company Wayne McGregor has collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a series of works, ‘Autobiography (v95 and v96)’, at Sadler’s Wells (12 – 13 March 2024)
By Rachael Moloney Published