IBASHO is pleased to present a concise retrospective solo exhibition ‘SENSEI’ by Eikoh Hosoe.
Eikoh Hosoe (1933–2024) was one of the masters (‘sensei’ in Japanese) of post-war Japanese photography and tutor of Hitoshi Fugo, whose works will also be shown in IBASHO at the same time.
Hosoe’s practice developed through encounters with artists from beyond photography, such as with Yayoi Kusama. His meeting with the butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata in the late 1950s proved particularly important, while his collaboration with the writer Yukio Mishima produced Ordeal by Roses (Barakei), one of the most celebrated photographic books of the post-war period. Hosoe also worked in experimental film and continued throughout his career to move between photography, performance, theatre and literature. In 1974 he co-founded the Workshop School of Photography with Shōmei Tōmatsu, Daidō Moriyama and others, and from 1975 taught at the Tokyo College of Photography. He later became professor emeritus and, from 1995, the founding director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts. His contribution to photography was recognised internationally, including with the British Royal Photographic Society’s 150th Anniversary Medal in 2003 and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 2017.

This commitment to collaboration is central to the four series that will be exhibited: 'Ordeal by Roses' (1961–62), 'Kamaitachi' (1965–68), 'Embrace' (1969–70) and 'Simmon; A Private Landscape' (1970s).
Across these projects, Hosoe repeatedly brought photography into dialogue with other forms of artistic expression, but never subordinated the photograph to them. His images are constructed rather than merely observed, yet their theatricality serves as a means of reaching experiences that ordinary description cannot contain: desire in Mishima's body, memory and folklore in the landscapes of 'Kamaitachi', physical intimacy in 'Embrace' and identity and place in 'Simmon'. His career, from the experimental climate surrounding VIVO to his later work as an educator and museum director, was equally devoted to expanding what photography could be and to creating the conditions in which subsequent generations could do the same.

Artists: Eikoh Hosoe