Palpable Visions
Miyako Ishiuchi: Photographs 1976-2005
Foam_fotografiemuseum
Amsterdam
September 19-November 16, 2008

Photographs can transcend the visual, triggering feelings so strong as to be palpable. This fact could not be more odd: most photographs are insistently flat, odorless, and lacking any obvious texture. But we can feel the warmth of the sand against the model’s skin in an Edward Weston nude or smell the citrus essence left by an orange peel in an Elinor Carucci photograph. Beyond inspiring a swell of emotion, these images heighten the sensory experience of memory. Miyako Ishiuchi’s photographs, despite targeting our eyes, are astonishingly adept at tweaking senses beyond sight.

Spanning nearly thirty years of her photographic career, Ishiuchi’s exhibition at Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam is the first European retrospective for this Japanese photographer. “Mother’s”—the tender document of her own mother’s body and belongings whose inclusion in the 2005 Venice Biennale brought Ishiuchi increased attention from western eyes—is the highlight, with the figure-driven series “1.9.4.7.” and “1906 to the Skin,” acting as elegant visual compliments. Completing the retrospective is the more photojournalistic work of Ishiuchi’s 1970s-era series “Yokosuka Story,” “Apartment,” and “Endless Night.”

“Mother’s” began simply as Ishiuchi’s tasteful photographing of her elderly mother’s body, particularly the flesh damaged in a burn accident. But when Ishiuchi’s mother abruptly passed away, the project expanded to include objects that themselves recorded intimate interactions with her mother’s body: false teeth, a pair of gloves with worn fingertips, a brush whose bristles still hold looping strands of thin hair. Images of lace undergarments hang beside those of ravaged skin, the delicate patterns of each offering arguments and counterarguments on what is beautiful.

But Ishiuchi’s series is more than a simple example of photography’s inherent ability to beautify. Despite their flatness and sheen, Ishiuchi’s images convey an incredible amount of texture. We feel the nearly weightless silk of her mother’s slip, our scalp feels the brush gently tugging our hair. Beyond stimulating our sense of touch, the images of “Mother’s” bring us to a rumination on wear: what it is to wear our flesh, and to conceal, extend, or enhance it through daily rituals.

The emotive elegance of the photographs themselves is matched by the presentation. Eighteen images from the series—large and small, monochrome and color—hang at varying heights, creating a gently undulating sequence leading the eye back and forth between flesh and object.

“1906 to the Skin” focuses exclusively on flesh, specifically that of octogenarian Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno. A range of large and small black-and-white prints comprise the display, each rendered in subdued, warm grays. Some vantages are so close that the flesh becomes an abstraction of texture, while others focus on certain body parts. Most arresting is a photo of Ohno’s ankle and heel. The dancer’s pose creates a contorted version of the joint, with the heel facing upward as if he were standing on the very tips of his toes. The ankle’s flesh is loose and gathered like a lightweight fabric, while the heel shines with reflected light, worn and cracked from its eighty plus years of use. Again, our senses become a part of the experience of an Ishiuchi image; our own calve feels Ohno’s extension of muscle and tendon; our own fingertips read the textures of the simultaneously smooth and riven heel.

The series title “1.9.4.7.” references the year of Ishiuchi’s birth, and consists of close studies of the hands and feet of women sharing the same birth year. The images are expertly crafted and accentuate the rough, flaky skin around the nails, revealing the beauty of wear and use. Unfortunately, the compositions—cupped, clasped hands and crossed feet—don’t inspire, resulting in works that feel more typology than testament. Despite emerging from a similar conceptual thrust as “Mother’s” and “1906 to the Skin,” the images of “1.9.4.7″ lack the evocative power of Ishiuchi’s other efforts.

Presented as a large grid, the images of “Yokosuka Story” are glimpses of the artist’s hometown, whose nearby American military base heavily influenced the visual landscape: English language signage mixes with Japanese, an American flag obscures the flag of another nation. The eye is drawn to the image at the grid’s center: a spray-painted likeness of the “Triumph” motorcycle company logo with a hastier, angrier “NO” graffitied below it. From this anchor the eyes jump from rectangle to rectangle to create the narrative: war, occupation, and the effects of these states of being.

“Apartment” documents cramped, communal living spaces through images of walls, doors, and hallways. There is a feeling of people scurrying about these passages, and Ishiuchi’s high contrast photographs reveal the scuffs, dents, and stains left behind. Similarly, “Endless Night” presents interior views of a decrepit apartment house, the former home to drifters and prostitutes in search of a temporary place of business. In this series, we see the beginnings of an attention to the formal geometry of space, a consistent thread of Ishiuchi’s work that would later appear in the classic poses of her figure studies.

“Yokosuka Story,” “Apartment,” and “Endless Night” succeed in showing us Ishiuchi’s early quest to represent the transitory nature of presence, absence, and touch. Though formally estranged from the delicate flesh of her later work, the inclusion of these earlier, politically infused documentary series is a vital and an appropriate addition, making this exhibition a true retrospective.

This review originally appeared in Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism,) Issue 36.4 (January / February 2009)