720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 | T: 323 450 9409 | www.nonaka-hill.com

Kansuke Yamamoto

Biography

Nonaka-Hill is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Kansuke Yamamoto from
September 22 to November 10, 2018.
Kansuke Yamamoto, a Surrealist poet and photographer, was born in Nagoya in 1914 anddied there in 1987. Yamamoto’s father, Goro Yamamoto, was a photographer working in
the Pictorialist style and owner of Nagoya’s first photography supply store. In thisenvironment, Yamamoto naturally absorbed the mechanics of photography, but wasinitially ambivalent about the medium. He began to write poetry in 1930, and entered
Tokyo’s Meiji University in the French Literature Department where he was exposed to
the latest Western art movements and theories, such as Surrealism, Dadaism, Bauhaus,
Neue Sachlichkeit. Attracted to Surrealism, a movement concerned with theunconscious, chance, and unexpected juxtapositions, Yamamoto returned return to
Nagoya in 1931 and began, at age of 17, to “practice Surrealism in photography”. He
used a variety of methods, including collage and photomontage. The fourteen vintage
photographic works on view were produced by Yamamoto between 1935 and 1968, anddemonstrate Yamamoto’s Surrealist inflections into landscape, still-life, figuration,
self-portraiture, narratives and abstraction, distinctively merged with Japanese aesthetic
characteristics.
Yamamoto’s poetic sensibility also embraced a sharp eye for social criticism, responding
to the times in which he lived. The Taisho Era, which had embraced foreign influence,
lifestyle choices and free-thought ended in 1926 when Yamamoto was only 12 years old.
The following Showa Era, which lasted for the rest of Yamamoto’s life, was militaristic
and aggressively suspicious of foreign influences, especially Communism (which wasknown to be linked to the European Surrealists).

In Yamamoto’s case, the 1937

exhibition “Kaigai Chogenjitsushugi Sakuhinten” (Exhibition of Overseas SurrealistWorks) inspired him to publish the Surrealist poetry journal Yoru no Funsui (“The Night’sFountain”), but Yamamoto was forced to cease publication after the fourth volume due tocensorship from the “Thought Police” (formally: Special Higher Police / Tokubetsu KotoKeisatsu). Avant-garde thought was under-attack. Some artists were jailed, while others
lived in fear. Yamamoto and his colleagues continued to operate carefully and quietly“under the radar” through the wartime years with a strong sense of community.
Yamamoto was a key member of several artist and poet groups including VIVI (which hefounded) and with the avant-garde poets’ group VOU, organized by Katsue Kitasono,
where Yamamoto contributed poetry and visual works to the group’s journal and“Keisho” exhibitions until 1978, when VOU dissolved.

720 N. Highland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038 | T: 323 450 9409 | www.nonaka-hill.com

Kansuke Yamamoto

Yamamoto, by his nature, was never self-promoting – not even when he correspondedwith French Surrealists to publish their works. He lived through oppressed times, but
continued to work with commitment to Surrealism while other photographic trends
formed in Japan and became historicized. A 2001 solo exhibition at Tokyo Station
Gallery, co-curated by John Solt and Ryuichi Kaneko brought a new audience toYamamoto’s lifelong work.
Nonaka-Hill’s exhibition marks a return of Yamamoto’s work to Los Angeles after twomuseum exhibitions in 2013. It was subject of a two-artist exhibition at J. Paul Getty
Museum entitled: “Japan’s Modern Divide: The Photographs of Hiroshi Hamaya andKansuke Yamamoto”(1), and was featured in LACMA’s exhibition “Drawing Surrealism” (2).

Yamamoto’s work is included in the collections of the Nagoya City Art Museum, Tokyo
Photographic Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, The
Art institute of Chicago, and others.

(1) curated by Judith Keller and Amanda Maddox(2) curated by Leslie Jones