modern
art asia

issue thirteen, march 2013

ENCOUNTERING PHOTOGRAPHS WITHQUESTION MARKS BY ANZAÏ SHIGEOJAMES JACK

Abstract
Photographic images have been instrumental in the origins,development and remembrance of most contemporary art movements. This
article investigates visual and discursive records in Japan with an emphasis onAnzaï Shigeo’s early engagement with artists and their installations. I weave
together discursive memories that are often contradictory and synergistic
in the narration of past events, emphasizing the active remembrance ofhistorical moments, based on the belief that if we do not seize images of thepast in the present they may disappear forever (as Walter Benjamin warned).1
These photographs illuminate how artworks and ideas exist in multiple
presents, including our own viewing of not only the artworks in their current
iteration but also the viewing of the photographs themselves. FurthermoreAnzaï shows that photographic records are not taken from a fixed standpoint;
rather they are part of a continuing engagement with the artworks that alters
their historical remembrance.
In embarking on a journey into the black and white photographs ofAnzaï, conflicting narratives emerge. These photographs have often been
considered as an archive of Japanese contemporary art movements, serving asa window onto the past. Anzaï is a proliferate documentarian of contemporary
art in Japan, but these images are not as transparent as the glass inside thecamera through which they were first exposed. Each image engages in theparadoxes of sites indifferent to their execution, interactions that changed
their course, and other contingent factors found in the surroundings of thephotographic frame. These paradoxes become clear while examining theextended frame of Anzaï’s photographs, including the darkly burned borderaround each image, and the hand written inscriptions on each silver gelatin
print. What lies beyond the artwork, artist in action, or the exhibition thatappears inside the frame? Debates, inconsistencies and disagreements cometo the surface of each print in the complexity of the present.

issue thirteen, march 2013
In other words, the essence of my work is not how things
relate to photography, but how I relate to all of the things I
encounter through the medium of photography.
							Anzaï Shigeo2
A single image in the corpus of Anzaï Shigeo (1939- ) reveals something
about all of the others. In this image, a collection of what appear to be cardoor mirrors are arranged on a carpeted floor, each positioned at a uniqueangle on top of a stone, reflecting scenery in and around the space of theroom. Within this artwork by Shima Kuniichi one mirror reflects Anzaï’s
peering eye, caught on a prominent mirror near the center of the image. This
image evidences Anzaï’s process of not just taking, but making photographs.
His calm facial expression reflects on this circular mirror, as the mirror in his
own camera lifts to expose black and white film during a fraction of a second.
If immersed in this photograph long enough, the gaze is no longer Anzaï’s:
as the viewer shares the photographer’s perspective, the reflected eye takes
the place of the viewer’s own, both seeing and being seen. While gazing
into the work, the stones are no longer placed calmly at a distance, but they
become animated figures with a “tiny spark of contingency” right here andnow in the act of viewing that is taking place on this page.3 Light refracts as it
passes obliquely through the spaces occupied by the viewer, the mirrors andthe camera: endlessly bouncing here and there, intensifying and releasing as
it travels from one surface to the next.
I argue the same reflective apparatus is at work in other crucial
images taken by Anzaï. By revealing his own face inside the frame reflected
on a mirror inside an artwork, his subjective engagement with artists, theirwork and situation is made visible. In this one image the mirror makes his
subjective position more obvious than his other works. The importance of
this photographer’s involvement in debates over mono made a significant
contribution to the art movement that later became known as Mono-ha.4
Since contemporary artists play a significant role in creating their own
historiography it is important to consider the theoretical contribution ofAnzaï alongside that of other members of the movement. Starting with themodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
issues of framing these photographic works, this article investigates theearliest photographs of artists’ work by Anzaï, revealing his subjectivity byemphasizing photography not as a record of the creative output of others, but
as a creative engagement in its own right. Furthermore I will argue that the
selection, display and reproduction of photographs shows the importance of
the underlying frames present in existing discourse.
The agency of photographs in mediating the materiality of historicalartworks offers a useful tool to examine multiple iterations of the works inspace and time. The synergy between raw material, concepts and theory canbe seen in these dense black and white images. Outside these black-rimmed
photographs an engagement with space, environments, materials and mono
(things) can also be felt. But they do not relate to these important aspects
externally. Anzaï reflects on his work as a medium for relationships, or “how I
relate to all of the things I encounter through the medium of photography.”5Anzaï’s works open multiple perspectives that are inherent in events, thereby
contributing to the atmosphere in which Mono-ha (School of Things) and othercontemporary art movements emerged. The relationship of shigusa (action)and materiality was crucial to early discussions the artists were having withAnzaï and had a dramatic influence on their perception of mono which later
became the theoretical foundation for Mono-ha. The material conditions
asserted by artists associated with Mono-ha transform in photographic
representations of their artworks. The transmutability of materials and thecontingency of artworks are expressed in these photographs. Additionally,
their contribution to the polysemy of various conceptions of mono is crucial
to future understanding of the global significance of Japanese artists. The
sparks of contingency opened by the extended frames of these images invite
renewed discoveries of historical images in the present.
(Almost) a member of the movementAnzaï Shigeo never went to art school. He studied applied chemistryin high school and then worked in the Japanese oil industry for five years.
During this time he educated himself in painting and drawing. He started

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issue thirteen, march 2013
showing paintings in group exhibitions at the Muramatsu Gallery (1967)
and Tokiwa Gallery (1968), as well as the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum(1968, 1969) all venues where notable artistic experiments were occurring
simultaneously. He also held a solo exhibition of paintings at Tamura Gallery(1969), where many of the Mono-ha artists exhibited. In that same year hemet artist Lee Ufan and bought his first camera. These two events changed
the artistic activities that were occurring in Tokyo from ephemeral events tomoments that would be given a recurring voice in his black and white images.
A photograph of the work Phenomenon and Perception B (Chikaku to genshōB) from a solo exhibition by artist and philosopher Lee Ufan (1936- ) held at
Tamura Gallery (January 12-24, 1970) is one of the first images Anzaï evertook of another artist’s work. This image, is a telling example of his subjective
involvement in documenting artworks, which was to have a significant impact
on how Mono-ha works were seen. In this photograph the work, composedof stones floating in raw cotton, is shown in a corner of the gallery in a softtoned and naïve photograph. If it were not for the darkly etched borderaround the frame with the sprockets of film showing at the lower edge of theimage, the white of the wall and the whites of the cotton fibers would risk
being lost in this ambiguous gray composition.
In the same solo exhibition Lee also displayed the work Structure
A, photographed by an unknown photographer and reproduced in Chiba
Shigeo’s book History of Deviation in Contemporary Art 1945-1985 (Gendai
bijutsu itsu datsu shi 1945-1985). Sharing the use of raw cotton with theprevious work, this cube had a much stronger presence due to the steel plates
that were suspended on the surfaces of the cotton cube. In this photographthe dark bands of the frame have vanished and Lee’s cube has been cropped
on the corner. The selective framing of the artwork occurring in time is clear,as the dimensionality of the work changes in reproduction. Furthermore theanonymity of the photographer in this reproduction evidences the focus on
the object, rather than on the photograph, supporting my claim, following
Derrida, that “the frame does not exist”6 in the literature on Mono-ha todate.

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issue thirteen, march 2013Anzaï’s early photographic activities were not about recording ascene but actively participating in the atmosphere in which the works werebeing thought about. Just after taking photographs of Lee’s work at Tamura
Gallery the two of them went to a nearby soba noodle shop. Lee discussed
the importance of mono and ba (place) in the work he and others were
producing as well as the lack of collectors who would preserve and care for
their works after they were displayed.7 Lee felt that with no artworks and no
photographs remaining their ideas could disappear just as quickly as they
had appeared. This was one of the first moments when Anzaï saw his place
within the issues artists were contesting in staging ephemeral installations
in galleries, museums and outdoor spaces. Anzaï was active in the formative
debates over mono at their inception, before the invention of “Mono-ha”. In
1983 Lee recollected on Anzaï’s first involvement as juvenile but persistent:
Because he was so poor, you couldn’t really call him aphotographer, and he had come so far and volunteered to takepictures … I encouraged him on the one hand, but on the other,
I felt that since this was something I hadn’t asked him to do,there wasn’t any reason to egg him on.8
During this time Anzaï started taking photographs but also continued
painting. It was the intense conversations he had in with Lee, Sekine Nobuo,
Yoshida Katsurō and others that would inspire him to devote himself tophotographing the camera instead of canvas. He was never an observer, but
a vehement participant and co-creator of the intellectual atmosphere of theperiod.
In contrast to other photographers who were often hired to takeobjective installation photographs of artworks in a formal architectural
fashion, Anzaï was involved in the creative process itself: from producing andinstalling the work, to attending social gatherings as well as live performances.
He went to these events not because he was paid to be there but because
he was invested in the artists’ experiments. Possibly due to his origins as
an artist he is uncomfortable with the title of “photographer” and feels hislabor is that of an “art accompanist.”9 According to Lee his creative approachmodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
(almost) makes him a member of the Mono-ha movement itself:
By taking photographs Anzaï Shigeo must be said to be an artist
typical of Mono-ha for showing the world of the 1970s to us. …
In my thoughts he lived alongside Mono-ha, taking pictures of
Mono-ha, making it known in the world and that world known
in it, thus more than anything attaching an angle of distinction
to it.10
It is precisely this “angle of distinction” which Anzaï attached to
Mono-ha that has not been investigated in previous literature. The questionthat has not been asked is: how did Anzaï frame the artists and how has thisframing impacted historical remembrances of the period?
The tension between capturing the artwork and being involved in
the activities that lie in the “extended frame” are revealed in the discursive
records of January 1970. In the same month that Lee asked Anzaï tophotograph his solo exhibition at Tamura Gallery recollected previously, Leealso moderated the panel discussion “A New World Revealed by <Mono>,”the article which became the foundation for artistic perspectives on Monoha. Anzaï’s photographs of the work Structure A come from an importantmoment when the relationship between the artists, their statements and thephotographer can be seen in action.
In the same month, Lee was also refining his philosophical idea of‘the Encounter’, which he published in the same issue of Bijutsu techō as thepanel discussion in a separate article titled “In Search of Encounter” (“Deaiwo motomete”). In this article Lee explains the concept of Encounter in thecontext of contemporary art as, “Complete open consciousness—preciselythat which is in the nature of the world just as it is, an ‘encounter’ becomesa movement that makes one self-aware, perhaps.”11 The question here is
how can “complete open consciousness” be experienced in the encounterof a work of art in a photograph? Herein photographs will not be analyzed
for their connotative meaning based on the pose of objects from the past,12
but in the subjective present according to the pose of the photographer, theartist and the current viewer.

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The extended frame for multiple encounters

issue thirteen, march 2013Anzaï is obsessed with what is happening now and hates editing. For
exhibitions of his work, he would display every photograph he has taken if
he could: including countless artists, installations, performances, parties andhappenings from the past four decades. He refuses to use a digital camera
or computer even in 2013. Although his oeuvre has been the subject of two
retrospective exhibitions,13 an examination of his early engagement with thecamera has not been adequately addressed in the scholarly field. His images
are too often purported to function as a window on historical artworks in thesecondary literature; but these images have a life of their own, with irony,tensions and inconsistencies that need to be unraveled from the seemingly
square frame. These photographs are not about artworks as objects thatappear in front of the camera: instead they are part of the various iterations
in which the artworks exist.
By exposing the edges of the film negative onto the final print, a resultof grinding the negative carrier in the darkroom enlarger, Anzaï inscribes avisual statement that seems to say, “I was here.” Based on this inclusion his
works may seem to be a pure record of the scène en vis, or the scene as it
was understood or seen through a clear glass, but a closer examination of
the photographs and Anzaï’s subjectivity reveals otherwise. The dark band
included on Anzaï’s prints reveals not only what is central inside the frame but
also hints at what is not inside the frame. These photographs do not open aclear window onto the artwork, but present a subjective angle on a particular
moment. These are not just installation photographs that document what
happened; instead they are framed angles on events including multiple
experiences. Anzaï emphasizes the negative’s border in print, saying to theviewer the photographs were not cropped in the darkroom, but printed asthey were taken on location. Outside of this band, hand-written text appears
in the white of the photo paper. These two aspects reveal the importanceof framing, both literally and subjectively in Anzaï’s work. Rather than justtaking photographs he is making them.14
Anzaï’s “angle of distinction” is also revealed on the surface of hissilver gelatin prints in the captions he inscribes around the frame of each

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issue thirteen, march 2013
image. His hand-written notations are made with a black pen on the whiteborder, giving the photographs the feeling of a unique hand drawing. In a
caption for a photograph taken on the occasion of the Mono-ha and Post
Mono-ha Exhibition at the Seibu Museum of Art in 1987 Anzaï writes: “PostMono-ha’s Group Show, Seibu Museum, June 25, 1987.” The captions aswell as the obsessive recording of dates reveal a self-conscious archiving oftime. Anzaï is doing more than just recording who, what, where or when:
he is asserting the relevance and significance of various events, artists andartworks.
Although the inscriptions may appear to describe the details of what
is inside the frame, they are always selective and on further inspection reveal
a degree of irony. For example on the image of artists installing their work at
the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum he later wrote, “View of Installing theMainichi Contemporary Exhibit. Air thick with enthusiasm, the young artists
use all kinds of materials in defiance: wood, soil and water.” This image looks
like a bird’s eye view of any exhibition being unpacked but the caption frames
the artists as defiant users of edgy and raw materials. Anzaï frames the
public actions of artists who actively engaged with the surroundings for thisMuseum in Ueno Park, such as one artist who threw buckets of water into
the air above the stairway entrance or another artist who tore a circle into
the pavement. In so doing he participates in this “air thick with enthusiasm”
that was the fertile ground for radical art activities15 while also bringing along
a cloud of irony which floats in the air as it passes through time.
This cloud can be seen in the lack of objectivity contained by theblack-bands and the hand-written captions that encircle these images,
what I call the “extended frame.” Here a framing apparatus reveals multiple
perspectives in the narration of artists’ activities, which change according
to who is examining them and why. The extended frame is often cropped
when Anzaï’s images are reproduced, editing out the participant in favor ofa photographer who documents artworks from an objective standpoint. This
article takes careful consideration of these extended frames that have often
been cropped from scholarly inquires into postwar Japanese art practices.

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Sparks of contingency in a doorway

issue thirteen, march 2013

The beginnings of the extended frame can be found investigating theexhibition site for the 10th Tokyo Biennale ‘70: Between Man and Matter(Ningen to busshitsu)16 in Ueno Park. This exhibition was significant not
only for the artists it included, but also because it was the stage where twoof the most important chroniclers of Mono-ha started their careers: Anzaï
Shigeo and Minemura Toshiaki. Minemura worked in the management officeassisting curator Nakahara Yūsuke while Anzaï worked as an assistant for
artists Richard Serra, Daniel Buren and Mario Merz.17 As a personal assistant,Anzaï was in a position where he was actively involved with the artworks
while they were in progress, including photographs of activities that were
never part of the public exhibition.18
A sequence of five photographs that Anzaï took just outside theMuseum in Ueno Park shows Serra working on an outdoor piece for the
Biennale. In the first image the young artist Haraguchi Noriyuki is assisting
Serra in measuring the dimensions for the work by holding the center pointof a circle that Serra is chalking onto the black pavement.19 Anzaï’s vantage
point is the same eye level view as in his photograph of Lee’s work taken a
few months earlier, now looking down at actions rather than at a stationary
artwork. Two onlookers also stand outside the circle, giving clues to the
public and frequently traversed site of Ueno Park. Just as Anzaï is peering
into the camera at this moment, one of the onlookers also peers at the scenethrough a camera viewfinder, revealing the multiple recording angles andperspectives on this one event. This image shows an expanded encounter
with site-specific artworks in process, documenting an artistic dialogue thatwas occurring between Haraguchi, Serra and Anzaï.
Another image shows Serra tearing up the pavement in a circularform in preparation for his steel work to be installed. The labor of digging andthe constant gaze of passersby in the park can be felt in this image taken fromthe stance of someone directly engaged with the artwork in progress. In yet
another photograph taken by Anzaï which peers down at the pavement, thefinished work is seamlessly submerged flush with the surface of the pavement.
The two legs of a portable chair in the background appear incidently in themodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
photograph, endowing the image with a happenstance that renders it a poor
installation view in the common sense of objectively recording an artwork.
Yet for Anzaï those it is precisely those contingent things appearing in thephotograph that really matter.20
From this vantage point these photographs are only partiallyphotographs of Serra’s work, while the extended frame is composed ofmultiple contingent factors. For example, in the first image the stairway
and fence in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum are exposed in the
background. As a charged site for other performance activities before, during
and after Tokyo Biennale ’70 this setting also places the artists in a prominent
discursive context of the period. In front of these stairs artist Lee Ufan placed
his three sheets of paper that on the pavement, to let them tumble in thewind, and then return them to their original location as they became wrinkled
in the shifting air. Another artist Klaus Rinke executed a performance inwhich he enacted various actions along with a female counterpart including
the throwing of a bucket of water into the air and pacing up and down
the staircase. These photographs emphasize the performative aspects ofSerra’s work such as the action of digging and create the possibility for an
extended encounter with an image that is both more and less than what thephotographer hoped to capture.21
These images are not permanent records of the past, they areparticipants in issues of presence that began at the time and continue today.
In preparation for the printing of the exhibition catalog for Tokyo Biennale’70 artists were asked to send sketches of their planned work one month
before the exhibition. Many of the artists depended so much on the site thatthey left all of the details of their work up to elements of chance that would
be determined upon arriving in Tokyo. For example, Serra wrote “[Intuition]and materials, time, place, condition, in part, the nature of my activities—
will arrive in Japan 3rd week of April.”22 Upon arriving the artists engaged
with unexpected materials and unpredictable sites in and around the Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum. Anzaï’s photographs engage in these debates overthe importance of the artists’ presence in creating site-specific works. These

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issue thirteen, march 2013
images both contribute to the emphasis on process that was prevalent inglobal art trends of the time while also extending these issues to multiple
presents where new iterations of the work are circulated. Photographs may
be more of a door to be walked through rather than a window onto the past.
Although the Japanese artists were all invited to install their works on site,
artists from abroad were only allotted funds to ship their works. Curator
Nakahara felt strongly that the artists could not simply ship their works, but
had to be present in Tokyo in order to create site-specific works. Eventually
the organizers gave all they could to bring a few foreign artists and helped
many others gain funding from other sources. Some artists paid for theirown trip, in all seventeen artists came from abroad. Anzaï was wrapped up
in the interactions, negotiations and debates that occurred between artists
and the organizers for the Tokyo Biennale ‘70. Anzaï’s opiniated photographs
express encounters of all kinds: artists with each other, raw materials withthe setting, and viewers with artworks, all in ways that do not record thesituation objectively. While photographing the Biennale Anzaï realized how
things move not only on the artist’s side of an artwork but also on his side
as the one taking photographs, in his relationship to the artist.23 He created
what may appear to be a historical record useful in interpreting past events;
but what if this record is not as transparent as it seems?
If Anzaï’s photographs are seen as doors that open onto the issuesof process, presence and site-specificity, these photographs exist in an in
between space. Not so much a space in between man and matter as theexhibition title suggests, but a space in the time between now and then. This
space began in the time gaps from what artists sent for the catalog before
arriving and what they actually produced in Tokyo. Hans Haacke sent a pieceof paper that stated his work would “deal with the prevailing conditions of
the place” and therefore must be made once he arrived in Tokyo so that it
would be “sensibly tailored to the existing environment.”24 According to Anzaï,Haacke was deeply interested in circulation and spent his time in Tokyo inside
Ueno Park attaching tubes between trees. Before the exhibition opened thiswork was cancelled due to its unsafe apparatus in public and was installedon the museum floor instead. Reflecting on this quenched circulation Anzaï’smodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013vehemence can still be felt now as these images re-circulate in the world ofextended encounters.
A photograph Anzaï took during the installation of Between Man
and Matter opens an important debate between the organizers and one
international artist. In this photograph of a work in progress by Jannis
Kounnellis a pile of scattered rocks are being stacked inside the doorway ofan exhibition hall. This installation was stopped by the organizers because
the entrance to the gallery would have become blocked. Anzaï’s caption forthe photo reads, “As if the heaviness of natural stones fills the doorway…In
any case they said: a project placing stones in the entrance is prohibited!”
The extended frame of this photo records the activity of piling rocks one on
top of the other but also the irony of having to de-install the work afterwards
to comply with the organizers, an activity that was never seen by the public.
This photograph transforms a momentary encounter with a work that wassoon absent from the exhibition into an extended encounter that has thepotential for multiple iterations. Each of these photos open the possibility
for multiple encounters of the work where the sparks of contingency that are
only partially contained in the original can be felt.
Anzaï also photographed the work Kounellis displayed for theexhibition, a thin wooden pole cutting across a doorframe in a less obtrusive
manner, bisecting the space without occupying it. The pole intersects withthe floor in a point where a miniscule spring is sensitively placed. Together
these two contrasting photographs show Anzaï’s engaged approach that is“not so much about photographs as it is about the activity of photography.”25
Furthermore the “activity of photography” is set in motion alongside theactivity of the artists. These photographs are more than “documentation”
of an artwork and they are imperfect records of changing situations that
occurred at the Biennale. As the photographs are reproduced and exhibited
elsewhere, they open the encounter of site-specific artworks into non-site
specific viewing contexts. From these two photographs, one of a work thatwas seen and one that was not seen, doorways are opened in the continuingengagement of the work up to and including the present moment.

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Not such a square photographer

issue thirteen, march 2013

At Tokyo Biennale ’70 Anzaï’s photograph of Narita Katsuhiko’s works
Sumi No. 4, 5 & Sumi No. 8-23 shows the arrangement of eleven numbered
blocks of charcoal in the foreground along with two larger blocks in the
background. The unevenness of the charcoal blocks, some looking as if they
were cut on one end by a saw, and others looking as if they were burned inhalf during the process of firing them into charcoal. Debris can be seen in
front of the blocks on the floor, as these works crumble in time they shift
from one material condition into another. This is an aspect of the work thathas continued to spark debate as the works have shifted from square to a
gradually rounded shape in time. Rather than a measure for the integrity of
the work as a material condition in the past, I suggest this photograph could
also be crumbling in the slippage of time, changing from one situation toanother.
Anzaï’s photograph from above positions Narita’s work in a specificplace, on the distinctive wood floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum,an intervention inside the open space of the gallery. This image is shot fromeye level, showing the blocks of charcoal in relationship to one another aswell as the eccentric pegboard walled exhibition room. And perhaps mostimportantly is space, which fills nearly 80% of the photograph. This is theangle of distinction that Anzaï takes to this work which is not felt in otherimages of Narita’s work that were reproduced in Bijutsu techō and theexhibition catalog. The spark of contingency can be felt in this rare medium
format image that emphasizes the squareness of the sumi, or charcoal, blocks
observed with surrounding space. Square charcoal, square film, but not sucha square photographer. All of the other images discussed in this chapter wererecorded on 35 mm film and thus have a rectangular 2:3 proportion, but thistelling image of Narita’s Sumi is literally “squared” by a 1:1 proportion. Herea spark between the life of the image and the life of the artwork cannot be
contained in the border of the image, uniquely wrapped with only two darkly
etched borders.
Later in the same year at the annual exhibition Developments inContemporary Art (Gendai bijutsu no dōkō ten) held in Kyoto (July 7th- August

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issue thirteen, march 2013
9th, 1970) Anzaï engaged further with space as an active component of theartworks. Anzaï’s image of one exhibited work by artist Suga Kishio, Infinite
Situation I (Mugen jōkyō I), includes two windows that are overexposed inorder to highlight the outdoor space. The indoor space of the museum where
Suga placed two blocks of raw wood is so dark that little remains visible aside
from an outline of forms. These new relationships, including the relationshipof indoor and outdoor space, are emphasized in the dark exposure of Anzaï’s
photograph, accentuating the openness of both windows and the sceneryvisible outdoors. This space, both indoors and out, was in fact crucial to
Suga’s work as seen in the caption for the work which described the media as
including not only wood, but also “landscape” and “building”.26 The chunksof wood placed at an angle on the windowsills are devices for seeing thestructure of the building as well as the surrounding landscape, rather thanobjects meant to stand on their own.
A shared attention to space can be felt in the extended frame of thisphotograph. Anzaï recently recounted a fight Suga had over keeping thewindows open.27 In the hot summer of Kyoto the museum interior was airconditioned and the organizers wished for the windows to remain closed.
This image opens the work in light of this debate as it highlights the exterior
space beyond the museum. Anzaï’s continuing engagement with these issues
in shows the inseparability of perceived boundaries in space and visual
recording of the works. From this site and its corresponding photographs,
mono (things) can be seen as a relationship between constructed spaceand existing space. Therefore Anzaï’s photographs are both of relationality
and about it, opening the possibility for an extended encounter of therelationships posed by the artworks.
Another less frequently discussed work by Suga from the same
exhibition also relies on existing aspects of the building. In Anzaï’s photographof this work, Infinite Situation II a flat surface across an interior stairwell iscreated with sand. The stark lighting coming from a window at the top of
the stairs is hardly adequate for documenting the artwork in an objective
sense, but Anzaï’s activity “accompanies” the artist on a journey rather thanmodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
record a destination. In the darkest shadow of the image Suga kneels down
on one of the last stairs, flattening sand to the point where it almost appears
to become a flat surface. But peering down on the staircase from above,Anzaï’s angle of distinction allows the corner of each stair to remain visible,
as the sand just fills the square gap between the edges of each stair withoutcompleting the newly angled plane. In this photograph Suga’s tools are stilllying at the top of the staircase, evidencing his delicate labor of flattening
the space in between each stair with sand. In this photograph Suga’s work is
not about sand as material, but about the relation of a common staircase, amaterial such as sand and the viewer who experiences this “condition.”Anzaï’s photographs of this exhibition in Kyoto may appear torepresent what was there, but in fact these photographs also change what
was there into something else. With this photograph, Suga’s actions are nolonger simply incidental to creation of the work, but become a performancein relationship to other performances he conducted with stones, sticks, ropeand other materials that emphasized “existence beyond condition”. Earlier
in the same year Suga wrote, “Through the act of placing one object overanother, we understand that a thing and a thing, and a thing and a human,share a similar place.”28 Suga’s work emphasizes the condition of space by
opening a window, a staircase or an outdoor park. He does not change or alter
the building itself, but transforms the condition of one material thus altering
our perception of existing space. Anzaï’s photographs open Suga’s materials
beyond wood, sand and rope to include spaces inside and surrounding theexhibition site.
More evidence for Anzaï’s subjective involvement in the frame canbe seen in his photographs taken at the exhibition, Aspects of New Japanese
Art (Gendai bijutsu no ichi rui men ten, August 4th-30th, 1970).29 In theseheterogeneous photographs intimacy with artists and their process iscomplicated by a newfound effort toward an objective panoramic style ofphotographing the exhibition as a whole. In one image, Lee works intently
on tightening a thick strand of rope around a number of large wood timbers
stacked vertically against a pillar inside the gallery. In this photograph Anzaï’smodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
perspective is such an intimate close up that he could easily have been
helping to hold the timbers with one hand while taking the photograph withthe other. Another person’s hands are visible in the background, assisting Leewith the task of suspending the timbers that encircle a prominent pillar in
the center of the gallery. The emphasis is on the activity of wrapping, as eachstrand of the heavy rope stands out in the foreground of the image while Lee
is focused on wrapping the rope as tightly as possible to prevent the timbers
from falling down. Lee’s work Relatum consists of a careful balance between
the tension of a thick rope wrapped around these timbers floating in theair, poised as if the rope could fall if it were slackened just a little. Here theactions of the artist are most prominent, with very little space in the frame,
displaying Anzaï’s intimacy with Lee and the angle of distinction obtained byparticipating in the installation process.
Upon completion of the work Anzaï takes a step back from it,
positioning himself lower to the ground, to take a photograph that emphasizes
the verticality of Lee’s work which plays with gravity. Here the timbers appear
in distorted proportions that make them appear gigantic. This photographshows Anzaï’s position in relation to the artworks changing from the eyelevel view, and this shift in perspective conveys a newly found relationshipto the exhibition venue and the artworks framed by his camera. This image
begins to reveal the central pillar in the gallery that Lee selected as thebase for his work, a controversial decision that indicates one of the crucial
characteristics of Mono-ha artists’ works: Lee was supposed to hang workon the wall or display it freestanding in the conventional mode for sculpture,but he intentionally chose to engage with the architecture of the building
itself. Similar to the issues Suga faced in Kyoto with his two works which also
incorporated overlooked features of the existing building, Lee challenged
museum conventions by attaching his work to a pillar, an action prominently
displayed in Anzaï’s photographs.
This issue is further revealed in another installation photograph unlike
any seen thus far. For this image Anzaï steps as far backwards as possible toshoot a panoramic view of the gallery that included Lee’s three works Relatum

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I, II, and III (Mukeikō I, II, III). In this photo the room appears expansive andsomewhat empty, with over one-third of the space including just the ceilingand floor, giving the effect of an open space that is only sparsely occupied byartworks. This image thus contributes to the expanded encounter of existing
space, by showing an aspect of the work that could be overlooked whenviewing the work in person. In this photograph Anzaï has carefully framed
the last strand of the rope extending just beyond the knot in Lee’s work, sothat it appears to be dangling just barely down to the floor, curving rightbehind the caption for the work. Anzaï is beginning to realize the drama of
his engagement with the artists and the power of their combination in his
camera lens.
In this same image Anzaï has also carefully positioned other works
in the background of the photographic frame, giving an expansive sense of
space occupied by multiple works. One of Lee’s works, Relatum III protrudes
from the back wall far into the mid-ground of the photograph. This work
engages the relationship between the wall and the floor as one surface
turns into another by creating a third surface that conjoins them. Differingfrom earlier photographs, this image portrays the gallery in what appears
to be its entirety, with less emphasis on individual works and more inclusionof the existing architecture of the gallery space in the camera frame. This
photograph shows the works to be less about mono as objects and more
about the importance of the space surrounding the works on display, a crucial
aspect of the artists’ works. In these three heterogeneous images taken in thesame exhibition room at different times Anzaï opens Lee’s work in progress,
depicting it standing tall, and then in full panoramic drama. Without thesephotographs debates over mono would have been limited to those who wereat the original site with the same “I was there” proof Anzaï appears to hold.
But the dynamic life of these photographs not only represent artworks, theyalso mediate and extend the encounter of artworks.
Not because I believe with what is going on
In examining individual photographs taken by Anzaï compared tomodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
other photographs from the period factors such as artistic process, debatesover presence, performance, and existing conditions are all revealed in
the activity of photographing. Anzaï’s photographs live in contested zones
that often disagreeing with artists and their critics. In his distinctively raspy
voice he recently told me, “With questions I take photos. My photos are arecord, but my process of taking photos is not because I agree with what isgoing on.”30 While taking photos Anzaï both agrees and disagrees with what
is going on, contextualizing issues of mono and place in charged sites. His
relationship with the artists, curators and art critics is also expressed in his
photographs of processes such as negotiation over how to install an artwork.
These relationships contribute visual and verbal records of events in time,
contributing to the debates engaged by the original artworks and theirsubsequent recreations. Anzaï is not only recording fleeting moments but
also creating new moments in the present, or multiple presents as his images
are seen and re-seen in various contexts.
In this examination of Anzaï’s photographs his perspective is notprivileged, as this would imply that he objectively records events from asingular perspective. Instead, his images include multiple perspectives thatthe photographer is often not aware of. From Lee’s perspective Anzaï captures
dynamic moments that will never happen again: “His work presented aperspective that might be seen as the dynamics of a kind of relationshipthat was limited to a certain subject and place.”31 But are these photographs
really limited to a “certain subject and place” seen from a stable point ofview which belongs to Anzaï? This investigation of a hetereogeneous archive
includes multiple vantage points outside the conventional frameworks forphotographic documentation by a “photographer”:
The ontological framework commonly held for discussing
photography, that wishes to ask what it is, is limited by thephotograph – the frame – and linked to whoever held thecamera. Such ontological discussions assume, as their point of
departure, that the photograph is a product of one stable pointof view – that of the photographer.32
Critiques of a fixed point of view such as this one are pertinent tomodernartasia.com

issue thirteen, march 2013
most contemporary photographic practices, and open multiple vantage
points on art and artists in Japan. If we adopt an unstable point of view
then Anzaï’s photographs can become points of intersection between
events that are performed and re-performed in multiple viewing contexts.
Not only do his photographs change the situation where the artistic eventis happening at the moment they are taken, but they also affect the event
and its remembrance over time. As photographs are reproduced in print andexhibited they become less a record of “what occurred” and more an active
agent contributing to and shaping debates that were central to the formationof Mono-ha as an art movement.
As seen in Anzaï’s earliest images of Lee’s work at Tamura Gallery,photographs evidence the inter-subjectivity of artists, writers and imagemakers, revealing contradictory perspectives on the debates over mono in
philosophy and practice. His images have not only made a dramatic impact
on the development of Mono-ha as an art movement, but also altered
the narration of the movement throughout time. Anzaï sees writings andphotographs as inextricably connected to a momentary experience that is
not only captured but gains a new life in the media of its recording:In particular “live art” is really about something that if not felt
instantly in that place, it can’t become a photograph or writing.
More precisely, by means of photographs and writings there
is also a good possibility that it goes in a completely different
direction.33
Photographic works by Anzaï not only record key events and artworks
from the period, but more importantly take them in completely different
directions, contributing to the active memory of the movement, and reframing
mono to be experienced via the extended encounter of photographic images.
As an active participant, Anzaï Shigeo contributed to and was
deeply influenced by Mono-ha, starting his career alongside the artists byshowing in the same galleries in Tokyo. One significant element of Monoha artworks, as well as many contemporary art movements across theglobe, was their concern with site-specificity, which necessitated visual

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recording of performative acts, failed experiments and situations that quickly
disappeared. In combination with his contemporaries Nakajima Kō, Kiyoji
Otsuji, Hirata Minoru and other photographers who devoted themselves toengaging with art actions in postwar Japan, Anzaï’s activity can be thoughtof less as evidence of what happened, but as a subjective mirror that
opens more questions than answers. The extended frames of these images
ignite the sparks of contingency that both illuminate and alter shifts in our
understanding of experiential art practices.
James Jack graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a master’s
thesis titled Remembering Mono-ha: The Recreation of Encounters in 2011,
for which he conducted primary research over two years as a Crown Prince
Akihito Scholar in Tokyo. His writings have appeared in publications such as
The Japan Times, Art Asia Pacific and Tokyo Art Beat and as well as exhibition
catalogs such as Yoshihiro Suda (The Contemporary Museum Honolulu,2009), Living in Story: Toshiaki Tomita (Intersections, University of Hawai‘i,2011) and Requiem for the Sun: The Art of Mono-ha (Blum and Poe Gallery,2012). He is currently pursuing a doctorate degree at Tokyo University of theArts in fine art practice.
Notes
All translations from Japanese are by the author unless otherwise noted.
Japanese names appear in Japanese name order. The author would like tothank John Szostak, Jaimey Hamilton, Mika Yoshitake, Olivier Krischer and
Adachi Gen for their crucial feedback on the content of this article and the
Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship Foundation for research support.
1“Walter Benjamin has a poetic manner of describing this circumstance:‘The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when
it can be recognized and is never seen again.’ But then he adds: ‘For every
image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own
concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably.’” Walter Benjamin, ‘Theseson the Philosophy of History’, Thesis V in Illuminations, ed. and with an
introduction by Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn, New York, 1976, p. 255.
Quote from “Reading, Writing, Filming, Dreaming, Dressing: Michael Ann
Holly and Mieke Bal,” Art History, Vol. 30 No. 3, (June 2007), p. 410.
2Anzaï Shigeo et. al., PROOF: Ten Photographers, (San Francisco: New
Langton Arts, 1984), p. 5.
3“No matter how artful the photographer, no matter how carefully
posed his subject, the beholder feels an irresistible urge to search such a
picture for the tiny spark of contingency, or the Here and Now, with which

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reality has so to speak seared the subject, to find the inconspicuous spot
where in the immediacy of that long-forgotten moment the future subsists
so eloquently that we, looking back, may rediscover it.” Walter Benjamin,“A Short History of Photography,” INSCRIPTIONS, 1931, p. 58. <http://
imagineallthepeople.info/Benjamin.pdf> (April 13, 2011).
4
The term Mono-ha has been a contested zone since its inception,
beginning with Fujieda Teruo’s pejorative use of the term in the article “Monoha no sakugo” (Mono-ha’s Mistake), Bijutsu techō [Art notebook] (March1973), pp. 8-11; and Minemura Toshiaki’s “<Kurikaeshi> to <Shisutemu>–”Mono-ha” igo no moraru” (‘Repetition’ and ‘System’—The Moral after‘Mono-ha’), Bijutsu techō, no. 375 (December 1973), pp. 170–175. Mono-ha
is a concept that includes multiple approaches to art making that focused ona new approach to mono (もの, things) and the relationship between space,renewed perception and raw materials. Here Mono-ha will refer to a tension
between artworks that express the physicality of mono and artistic concepts
that are entangled with philosophical discourses of mono.
5Anzaï, PROOF, p. 5
6“il y a du cadre, mais le cadre n’existe pas” (There is frame, but theframe does not exist) Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. G. Bennington and
I. McLeod, Chicago, 1987, 81. In Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, “Semiotics
and Art History” The Art Bulletin. Vol. 73, No. 2 (June, 1991), p. 192.
7
Just after Anzaï came to take a few casual photos of his exhibit at
Tamura Gallery in January 1970 Lee recalls, “…Then we went out for soba at
a shop nearby the gallery and started to discuss all kinds of things, like therelationship of mono and ba in direct relation, finding a fresh new world that
could be seen together as the beginning of a movement, it was becoming
a unique Japanese contemporary art thing. But recently we realized works
that were limited to a place were getting more frequent, and there were
no collectors who wanted to keep those works, and there weren’t any
people taking pictures of those things, so afterwards there would be no art
works and no photos of those works. This became clear to their vision, so I
mentioned all this to Anzaï.” Lee Ufan “Shashin kūkan no rikigaku” (Dynamics
of Photographic Space) Mainichi Camera No. 358 (July 1983), pp. 139-40.
8
Lee Ufan. “Dynamics of Photographic Space”, p. 139.
9
Hirai Shoichi. ANZAÏ: Personal Photo Archives, 1970-2006. (National
Art Center: Tokyo, 2007), p. 17.
10
Lee Ufan. “Dynamics of Photographic Space”, p. 140.
11
Lee Ufan. “Deiai wo motomete” (In Search of Encounter), Bijutsutechō, (February 1970), p. 17.
12This includes scholars who have written extensively on Mono-ha
works as objects and materials with profound connotative meaning in thepast, including art historian Chiba Shigeo who takes a Barthesian approach to
photographs, “Here we must grant a particular importance to what we mightcall the pose of objects, since the connoted meaning derives from the objects
photographed.” Barthes, Roland. Richard Howe trans., The Responsibility

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issue thirteen, march 2013of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art, and Representation, (Berkeley, UC
Berkeley Press, 1991), p. 11.
13ANZAÏ: Personal Photo Archives 1970-2006 and Anzaï Shigeo’s Eye:
1970-1999 (National Museum of Art, Osaka (2000).
14
For further reference on the infinite range of meanings photographs
come to possess in not only the taking of the image but also the making of
the image through reproduction see Geoffrey Batchen’s essay, “Taking and
Making” in Each Wild Idea, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001),
pp. 82-106.
15
For more context on the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum as abattleground of contemporary art see Reiko Tomii, “How Gendai Bijutsu
Stole the “Museum:” An Institutional Observation of the Vanguard 1960s,” inSince Meiji: Perspectives on the Japanese Visual Arts, 1868-2000, (Honolulu:
University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012), pp. 144-167.
16
Opened at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum from May 10-30, 1970
and traveled to Kyoto Metropolitan Museum from June 6-28 and Aichi
Prefectural Museum from July 15-26. The title of the exhibition was different
in English and Japanese, a practice that occurs frequently in contemporary
art exhibitions held in Japan. Nakahara invited forty artists to participate inthis exhibition, more than half of which were from outside of Japan.
17
MONO-HA, (Tokyo: Kamakura Gallery, 1995), p. 77.
18
In this exhibition Anzaï took photographs of works by Sekine Nobuo,
Koshimizu Susumu, Yoshida Katsurō, Narita Katsuhiko, Takamatsu Jirō, Daniel
Buren, Hans Haacke, Christo, Richard Serra, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz,
Giuseppe Penone, Klaus Rinke, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Shoji Satoru, Barry
Flanagan, Horikawa Michio and Carl Andre.
19
This photograph was the subject of a recent article by Mitsuka
Yoshitaka published in the National Art Center’s newsletter on the topic of
the Anzaï Photo Archives (No. 14, April 2010), n.p.
20Anzaï stated, “I didn’t take a picture of Haraguchi, but Haraguchi justunintentionally appeared.” Anzaï Shigeo, “Shin shashin ron. Anzaï shigeo
no me: utsutte shimatta mono ga hitori aruki wo hajimeru—A-to ni tsuiteno shashin” (New Photo Theory. Eye of Anzaï Shigeo Interview: Things thatjust appear accidently are the beginning of the topic of one individual’s art
photographs), Mainichi Camera, No. 358, (July 1983), p. 136.
21
“The photographed image produced out of an encounter invariably
contains both more and less than that which someone wished to inscribe
in it. The photograph is always more and less than what one of the parties
to the encounter managed to frame at the moment of photography.” Ariella
Azoulay. “What is a photograph? What is photography?” Philosophy of
Photography, Vol. 1 No. 1, (2010), p. 12.
22
Nakahara Yūsuke, Dai jukkai Nihon kokusai bijutsu-ten: Ningen to
Busshitsu (Tokyo Biennale `70: Between man and matter), (Tokyo: Mainici
Shimbun-sha and Nihon kokusai Bijutsu Shinkōkai, 1970), n.p.
23Anzaï, “Things that just appear accidently…”, p. 135.

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issue thirteen, march 201324
Hans Haacke’s page reads: “Not knowing the Tokyo Metropolitan
Museum’s premises, the surrounding park, nor the city and its people, it is
impossible for me to outline a definitive proposal for my participation in theTokyo Biennale. Since I intend to deal with the prevailing conditions of theplace rather than importing a finished product, I have to wait until I havepersonally inspected the situation in Tokyo. Only through analysis of the local
systems would it be possible to find ways to expose just these systems, orto interfere with them or to introduce new systems sensibly tailored to theexisting environment.” Nakahara, Tokyo Biennale `70, n.p.
25Anzaï, “Things that just appear accidently…”, p. 137.
26
Janet Koplos, “Mono-ha and the Power of Materials: Japan’s New
Vital Sculpture Bridges East and West.” New Art Examiner 15:10 (June 1988),
p. 30.
27Anzaï stated, “The museum was air-conditioned, and Kishio ended uphaving a big fight with them so he could keep the windows open. So thinking
about it now, it was lucky for both of us. Lucky for me and lucky for theartists that I was there too.” Eden Corkhill “Shigeo Anzai: Faces of Youthful
Ambition,” The Japan Times, October 4, 2007.
28
Suga describes this condition in the article “Jōtai wo koete aru”
(Existence Beyond Condition) which appeared in Bijutsu techō, no. 324(February 1970), pp. 24-33. Translation by Mika Yoshitake in From Postwar
to Postmodern: Art in Japan 1945-1989, (New York: The Museum of Modern
Art, 2012), p. 225.
29
This exhibition organized by Tōnō Yoshiaki included many Mono-ha
and related artists including Inumaki Kanji, Koshimizu Susumu, Suga Kishio,
Takamatsu Jirō, Tanaka Shintarō, Narita Katsuhiko, Honda Shingo, Yoshida
Katsuro and Lee Ufan.
30Anzaï Shigeo Interview by the author on March 24, 2010 at Mizuma
Gallery in Kagurazaka, Tokyo.
31ANZAÏ: Personal Photo Archives, p. 18.
32
Azoulay. “What is a photograph?”, p. 11.
33
Quote by Anzaï Shigeo from a section titled “ikkaisei to kioku”(onceness and memory) in a panel discussion with Tōnō Yoshiaki and
Akasegawa Genpei titled, “Toshi kūkan no naka no shintai: Pafōmansu gahyōgen suru mono” (Body in the midst of urban space: Things expressed by
performance.) Yuriika, No. 16, Vol. 9, 1984, p. 159.

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Figure 1. Shima Kuniichi Exhibition, Kinokuniya Gallery, July 13, 1974. Photograph byAnzaï Shigeo.

Figure 2. Lee Ufan, Phenomenon and Perception B (Chikaku to genshō B). January 21,
1970. Tamura Gallery. Photograph by Anzaï Shigeo.

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Figure 3. Jannis Kounellis, Tokyo Biennale `70: Between Man and Matter. Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum, May 1970. Photograph by Anzaï Shigeo.

Figure 4. Narita Katsuhiko, Sumi No. 4,5 & Sumi No. 8-23, 1970. Charcoal. Tokyo
Biennale `70: (between) Man and Matter, May 1970. Photograph by Anzaï Shigeo.

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Figure 5. Suga Kishio, Infinite Situation II. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto. July 6,
1970. Photograph by Anzaï Shigeo.

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