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DATE: February 13, 2013 MEDIA CONTACT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Alexandria Sivak Getty Communications (310) 440-6473 asivak@getty.edu

GETTY EXHIBITION PRESENTS TWO SIDES OF MODERN JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto

March 26–August 25, 2013

At the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center LOS ANGELES—The Taishō era (1912–1926) was a brief but dynamic period in Japan’s history

that ushered in a modern state with increased industrialization, shifting political parties,

radical fashions, and liberal thinking in many areas. However, this era of heightened

experimentation ended with the arrival of an international depression, the promotion of

ultranationalism, and the country’s entry into what would become the Greater East Asia War.

Reflecting both sides of this dramatic transition, two disparate representations of

modern Japan will be displayed together in Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of

Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto, on view March 26–August 25, 2013, at the J. Paul

Getty Museum, Getty Center. Curated by Judith Keller, senior curator of photographs, and

Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photographs, the exhibition includes photographs from

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Image captions on page 5

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the Getty Museum’s permanent collection, the Toyko Metropolitan Museum of Photography,

the estate of Hiroshi Hamaya, the Nagoya City Art Museum, and other public and private

lenders.

Born during the Taishō era, photographers Hiroshi Hamaya (1915–1999) and Kansuke

Yamamoto (1914–1987) responded to Japan’s rapidly-changing sociopolitical climate in very

different ways. While Hamaya focused inward toward rural life on the back coast of Japan,

Yamamoto found inspiration in the art of European Surrealists. As the ebb and flow of Japan’s

political, economic, and social structures persisted across the 20th century, Hamaya and

Yamamoto continued to pursue divergent paths, thus embodying both sides of modern

Japanese life: the traditional and the Western, the rural and the urban, the oriental and the

occidental.

“Much is known about the Surrealists living and working in Europe, as well as the

celebrated documentary tradition of 20th-century photography, but the Japanese artists who

embraced these movements remain relatively unknown in the West,” says Timothy Potts,

director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “This exhibition illuminates the extraordinary work of

two artists who responded to upheaval in their country in two different, but equally powerful

ways.”

Hiroshi Hamaya

The son of a detective, Hamaya grew up in Tokyo’s Ueno neighborhood during the rise

and decline of the Taishō era. After attending Kanto Junior College, he began his photographic

career by taking aerial images for the Practical Aeronautical Institute. He later photographed

downtown Tokyo from street level, and provided images of daily city life and local events to a

number of magazines. In 1939, an assignment that took him to Ura Nihon, or the rural back

coast of the Sea of Japan, changed his view of photography and society.

Known for its unforgiving winter snowstorms and the difficult lives of its impoverished

inhabitants, Ura Nihon was a mystery to most of Japan and the world. Moved by the customs

and lifestyles of a much older era, Hamaya shifted from journalism toward a more humanistic

and ethnographic approach to photography, capturing the everyday life of the region’s

residents. This included documenting laborers in fields and at sea, as fish and rice were the

primary sources of nourishment throughout the year.

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From 1940 to 1955 Hamaya pursued a long-term

personal interest in the region of Echigo (now known as

Niigata Prefecture). He recorded the people, traditions,

and landscape of a district that was, at the time, Japan’s

chief rice-producing region in spite of a four-month long

snow season. Among his many subjects, Hamaya focused

on the winter in Kuwatoridani, a small agricultural village

that practiced elaborate, long-standing New Year’s Eve

rituals. In New Year's Ritual, Niigata Prefecture (1940–46),

boys in the village are seated with their hands clasped and

their eyes closed in prayer. The close-up of the boys’ faces

in deep concentration emphasizes the respect for customs

of the region.

In late 1959, the proposed ten-year renewal of the

United States-Japan Security Treaty of 1952 raised doubts

about Japan’s sovereignty and its future prosperity. When

Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, with the aid of police,

forced the Japanese parliament to ratify the treaty in May 1960, the political upheaval was

immense. While Hamaya was a pacifist, he felt obligated to return to his journalistic roots and

entered the fray with his camera. He chronicled the demonstrations day by day, sometimes

hour by hour.

“These demonstrations profoundly affected Hamaya, causing him, in the 1960s, to turn

from the social landscape to an investigation of nature,” explains Judith Keller. “His

disillusionment with Japan’s political apparatus provoked a rejection of the human subject.

Much of the work he created in his late career depicts the volcanoes, seas, mountains, forests,

and other natural wonders of Japan and other small island nations.”

Hamaya’s career also included portraiture of noted artists and scholars. As a freelance

photographer, he was often enlisted to make portraits of well-known men and women, and in

1983 published Japanese Scholars and Artists, a book that included prominent novelist

Junichiro Tanizaki, woodcut artist Shiko Manakata, literary critic Kenichi Yoshida, and

renowned poet, art historian, and calligrapher Yaichi Aizu. He also documented the daily life

of his beloved wife, Asa, and upon her death in 1985 created a portfolio of these sensitive

photographs, “Calendar Days of Asa Hamaya.”

New Year's Ritual, Niigata Prefecture, 1940–46. Hiroshi Hamaya (Japanese, 1915–1999). Gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © Keisuke Katano

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Kansuke Yamamoto

Kansuke Yamamoto (1914–1987) learned about photography from his father, an

amateur pictorialist photographer and owner of the first photo supply store in the city of

Nagoya. His interest in photography developed at a time when two movements based on

experimentation and new modes of expression—Shinkō Shashin (New Photography) and

Zen’ei Shashin (avant-garde photography)—were dominant. However, it was Surrealism—

particularly Surrealist artists and writers such as René Magritte, Paul Éluard, Yves Tanguy, and

Man Ray—that appears to have made the most profound impact on his work.

Yamamoto was an influential figure in the avant-garde photography movement in

Japan in the 1930s, helping to establish the group Nagoya Foto Avant-Garde by the end of that

decade. In 1938 he created a journal, Yoru no Funsui (The Night’s Fountain), which promoted

Surrealist poems, literature, ideas, and art in Japanese.

His first photographs date to the early 1930s and

reveal an interest in myriad techniques and subjects,

including abstract architectural studies, still life, and

collage. From the outset, he created work suffused with

mystery, provocation, and humor. He often utilized

photography as a means to address controversial issues or

express avant-garde ideas. For example, in Buddhist

Temple’s Birdcage (1940), the telephone enclosed in the

cage is possibly a metaphor for the control exercised by

the Japanese government during the Showa Era (1926–

1989), a theme that reappears in work produced

throughout his career. The experience of being

interrogated by the Tokkō (Thought Police) in 1939 for his

journal, Yoru no Funsui, and its potentially subversive

content made a profound impact on Yamamoto, but never

deterred his avant-garde spirit.

Yamamoto remained part of the artistic vanguard in Japan during the 1940s and 1950s.

He was a member of VOU, a club founded by poet Katue Kitasono that organized exhibitions

and published a journal promoting visual “plastic” poetry, photography, literature, and other

arts. In 1947 Yamamoto founded VIVI, a collective in Nagoya that allowed further

dissemination and promotion of avant-garde ideologies. Yamamoto continued to produce

Buddhist Temple's Bird Cage, 1940. Kansuke Yamamoto (Japanese, 1914–1987). Gelatin silver print. Private collection, entrusted to Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. © Toshio Yamamoto

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innovative work during this period, experimenting with color photography, combination

printing, photograms, and sculpture.

“At the end of his career in the 1970s, Yamamoto maintained his ardent non-

conformist spirit, employing art as a means of criticism, dialogue, and rebellion,” explains

Amanda Maddox. “He never failed to generate provocative imagery in an effort to represent

his convictions concerning war, liberty, and avant-garde ideologies.”

Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke

Yamamoto is on view March 26–August 25, 2013 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center.

The exhibition is curated by Judith Keller, senior curator of photographs, and Amanda

Maddox, assistant curator of photographs, at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the book Japan’s Modern Divide, edited by

Keller and Maddox and published by Getty Publications. A number of programming events

will also accompany the exhibition, including lectures, a film series, and curator gallery talks. A

full schedule of related events will be announced.

For more information and to access images, visit the Getty’s press room at

news.getty.edu.

Images on front (left to right): Man in a Traditional Minobashi Raincoat, Niigata Prefecture, 1956. Hiroshi Hamaya (Japanese, 1915–1999). Gelatin silver print. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. © Keisuke Katano; A Chronicle of Drifting, 1949. Kansuke Yamamoto (Japanese, 1914–1987). Gelatin silver print. Private collection, entrusted to Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. © Toshio Yamamoto

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RELATED EVENTS

All events are free, unless otherwise noted. Seating reservations are required. For reservations and information, please call (310) 440-7300 or visit www.getty.edu.

LECTURE

A Conversation about Surrealism in Japan

Miryam Sas, professor of comparative literature and film studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Fault Lines: Cultural Memory and Japanese Surrealism and Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan, discusses Japanese surrealism with John Solt, author of Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katue (1902–1978).

Wednesday, June 5, 7:00 p.m. Museum Lecture Hall, Getty Center STUDIO COURSE

Surrealist Strategies: Chance, Irrationality and the Unconscious Mind

Unleash your inner surrealist with artist Stas Orlovski and educator Tuyet Bach in this daylong studio workshop exploring ideas and creative strategies championed by the movement. Participants experiment with a range of art materials and explore surrealist techniques including automatic drawing, decalcomania, frottage, photomontage, and pochoir. Games such as exquisite corpse highlight the important role of collaboration and play in the creative process. Course fee $140 (includes lunch, materials, and parking). Open to 24 participants.

Wednesday, April 24, 10:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Course repeats Wednesday, June 5 Museum Studios, Getty Center TALKS

Curator’s Gallery Talk

Judy Keller, senior curator of photography, the J. Paul Getty Museum, leads a gallery talk on the exhibition. Meet under the stairs in the Museum Entrance Hall.

Date/Time TBD Curator’s Gallery Talk

Amanda Maddox, assistant curator of photography, the J. Paul Getty Museum, leads a gallery talk on the exhibition. Meet under the stairs in the Museum Entrance Hall.

Date/Time TBD

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FILM/VIDEO

Film Series: In Tokyo

Tokyo serves as the moral and geographic backdrop in this six-part film series exploring the city’s surface beauty and dark underbelly. This film series complements the exhibition Japan's Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto and examines the complexity of modern life in Japan during the careers of these influential and divergent artists. Harold M. Williams Auditorium, Getty Center.

Mr. Thank You (1936, Hiroshi Shimizu) Saturday, April 20, 4:00 p.m. Drunken Angel (1948, Akira Kurosawa) Saturday, April 20, 7:00 p.m. Tokyo Story (1953, Yasujiro Ozu) Sunday, April 21, 3:00 p.m. Tokyo Drifter (1966, Seijun Suzuki) Saturday, April 27, 4:00 p.m. Street of Shame (1956, Kenji Mizoguchi) Saturday, April 27, 7:00 p.m. Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1969, Nagisa Oshima) Sunday, April 28, 3:00 p.m.

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

Publications are available in the Getty Museum Store, by calling (310) 440-7333, or online at shop.getty.edu. Japan’s Modern Divide The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya and Kansuke Yamamoto

Edited by Judith Keller and Amanda Maddox

Two strains of modern Japanese photography, one documentary and the other avant-garde, are brought together in this handsome book. (Hardcover, $49.95)

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The J. Paul Getty Trust is an international cultural and philanthropic institution devoted to the visual arts that includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Research Institute, the Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation. The J. Paul Getty Trust and Getty programs serve a varied audience from two locations: the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu. The J. Paul Getty Museum collects in seven distinct areas, including Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, drawings, manuscripts, sculpture and decorative arts, and photographs gathered internationally. The Museum's mission is to make the collection meaningful and attractive to a broad audience by presenting and interpreting the works of art through educational programs, special exhibitions, publications, conservation, and research. Visiting the Getty Center The Getty Center is open Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. It is closed Monday and major holidays. Admission to the Getty Center is always free. Parking is $15 per car, but reduced to $10 after 5 p.m. on Saturdays and for evening events throughout the week. No reservation is required for parking or general admission. Reservations are required for event seating and groups of 15 or more. Please call (310) 440-7300 (English or Spanish) for reservations and information. The TTY line for callers who are deaf or hearing impaired is (310) 440-7305. The Getty Center is at 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, California. Additional information is available at www.getty.edu. Sign up for e-Getty at www.getty.edu/subscribe to receive free monthly highlights of events at the Getty Center and the Getty Villa via e-mail, or visit www.getty.edu for a complete calendar of public programs.