In 1949, Ōtsuji joined the avant-garde exhibition society Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai ("Art and Culture Association") and showed his photograph Itamashiki Buttai ( “Painful Object” ). The same year, he and other alumni from the Tokyo Professional School of Photography began to publish the magazine Fotogurafii ("Photography"), to which Ōtsuji contributed several written essays on photography. Ōtsuji ’ s early personal photography is often viewed as a re-exploration of prewar Surrealist photography in Japan. For example, his work Aishi ni tsuite ("About Feet") (1949) captures a raw chicken positioned upside down with its legs dramatically crossed in mid-air, thus offering a strange, almost life-like view of the dead animal. Another early series of photographs, shot in Nobuya Abe ’ s studio in 1950, depict the artist Hideko Fukushima and other women, both clothed and nude, posing within a geometric network of strings, thus appearing like dolls or puppets.Obinata Kin'ichi, "The Creation of Song Without Words – Kiyoji Otsuji’s 1956," 大辻清司 武蔵野美術大学美術館・図書館所蔵作品目錄 = Ōtsuji Kiyoji: Photographs in the Collection of the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 39. Following these examples, for the rest of his career, Ōtsuji ’ s personal photography continued to explore the presence of objects (もの, mono) – ready-made or found objects – and to capture their ephemerality with his camera. Work with avant-garde groups: 1953–1959 In 1953, Ōtsuji collaborated with the avant-garde art collective Jikken Kōbō on a project for the weekly graphic magazine Asahi Picture News, a subsection of Asahi Graph. Each artist constructed a three-dimensional assemblage containing the letters “A,” “P,” and “N” and Ōtsuji photographed the object. Each photograph was printed as a small header in the top corner of the Asahi Picture News double-page spread. After this project, Ōtsuji joined the group as an official member. He contributed photographs made into autoslide projections for the 5th Experimental Workshop Presentation in 1953, and continued to photograph the group ’ s events and rehearsals until they split up in 1957. Throughout the 1950s, Ōtsuji continued to experiment both with photographic expression and with the photographic apparatus. In 1956, he took a series of close-up photographs of Lake Ōnuma, and the slanted lines left behind on its frozen surface by ice skates. With none of the surrounding landscape depicted, the icy surface resembled gestural abstraction.Obinata Kin'ichi, "The Creation of Song Without Words – Kiyoji Otsuji’s 1956," 大辻清司 武蔵野美術大学美術館・図書館所蔵作品目錄 = Ōtsuji Kiyoji: Photographs in the Collection of the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 36. He built his own camera and even devised a cinematic device called an “autoscope” that was used to project images at the Sekiya Industries booth at the Japan International Trade Fair in Tokyo in 1957. Beginning around 1965, Ōtsuji began to contribute written essays and articles to photography magazines frequently, publishing in Camera Mainichi, Camera Jidai, S D: Space Design, Shashin Hihyō, and others. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he also continued to experiment with his personal photography and publish his work, often alongside his written texts. In the 1970s, his published works became increasingly theoretical. A series of photographs for Asahi Camera, “ Ōtsuji Kiyoji Experimental Workshop of Photography ” (1975), featured both essays and photographs that considered the theoretical issues surrounding photography as a process and discipline. His series Hitohako no Kako ( “ Past of One Tin Can ” ) was created for his first solo exhibition in 1977, and featured a 23-photograph sequence showing a can of memories being unpacked and individual elements examined by the camera – including old photographs. The series can be seen as a prolonged meditation on the object, which had interested him since his early career. By the 1970s, Ōtsuji’s authority in the Japanese photography world had solidified, and in addition to publishing frequently, he was asked to become a regular guest in a series of roundtable discussions published in Asahi Camera titled “ Roundtable: On Talked-About Photographs, ” where he was joined by other prominent photographers. He participated in these discussions in 1974, from 1976 to 1978, and again in 1985. 9th–12th Bijutsu Bunka Exhibitions, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1949–1952 Ogawa Yoshikazu and Ōtsuji Kiyoji Two-Man Show, Takemiya Gallery, Tokyo, 1952 The 5th Experimental Workshop Presentation, Daiichi Seimei Hall, Tokyo, 1953 1st–3rd Graphic Group Exhibitions, Matsuya Department Store, Ginza, 1953, 1955–1956; 4th Graphic Group Exhibition, Konishiroku Gallery, Tokyo, 1956 From Space to Environment, Matsuya Department Store, Ginza, Tokyo, 1966 Past of One Tin Can, Prism, Tokyo, 1977 Exhibition Ōtsuji Kiyoji, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, 1987 Ōtsuji Kiyoji 1948–1987 Exhibition, University of Tsukuba Gallery, Tsukuba, 1987 The Age of Modernism, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1995 Ōtsuji Kiyoji Portfolio, Mole, Tokyo, 1997 Kiyoji Ōtsuji Retrospective: Experimental Workshop of Photography, National Film Center, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1999 Kiyoji Ōtsuji and Fifteen Photographers, Tokyo Zōkei University Yokoyama Memorial Manzu Art Museum, Tokyo, 1999 Kiyoji Ōtsuji: Shūzō Takiguchi & Yoshishige Saitō on Photo, Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, 2003 Kiyoji Ōtsuji: Photographs as Collaborations, Shoto Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2007 APN Research, Kunsthalle Bern, 2012 Kiyoji Ōtsuji “Photographic Archive” : The Traces of the Photographer and the Art of His Era 1940–1980, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo, 2012 Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2013 Jikken Kōbō: Experimental Workshop, Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 2013 Ōtsuji Kiyoji, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2013 For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2015 Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now, SF MoMA, San Francisco, 2016 Category:Japanese photographers Category:1923 births Category:2001 deaths Category:Photography Category:Surrealist a
In 1949, Ōtsuji joined the avant-garde exhibition society Bijutsu Bunka Kyōkai ("Art and Culture Association") and showed his photograph Itamashiki Buttai ( "Painful Object" ). The same year, he and other alumni from the Tokyo Professional School of Photography began to publish the magazine Fotogurafii ("Photography"), to which Ōtsuji contributed several written essays on photography. Ōtsuji ' s early personal photography is often viewed as a re-exploration of prewar Surrealist photography in Japan. For example, his work Aishi ni tsuite ("About Feet") (1949) captures a raw chicken positioned upside down with its legs dramatically crossed in mid-air, thus offering a strange, almost lifelike view of the dead animal. Another early series of photographs, shot in Nobuya Abe ' s studio in 1950, depict the artist Hideko Fukushima and other women, both clothed and nude, posing within a geometric network of strings, thus appearing like dolls or puppets.Obinata Kin'ichi, "The Creation of Song Without Words – Kiyoji Otsuji’s 1956," 大辻清司 武蔵野美術大学美術館・図書館所蔵作品目錄 = Ōtsuji Kiyoji: Photographs in the Collection of the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 39. Following these examples, for the rest of his career, Ōtsuji ' s personal photography continued to explore the presence of objects (もの, mono) – ready-made or found objects – and to capture their ephemerality with his camera. Work with avant-garde groups: 1953–1959 In 1953, Ōtsuji collaborated with the avant-garde art collective Jikken Kōbō on a project for the weekly graphic magazine Asahi Picture News, a subsection of Asahi Graph. Each artist constructed a three-dimensional assemblage containing the letters "A," "P," and "N" and Ōtsuji photographed the object. Each photograph was printed as a small header in the top corner of the Asahi Picture News double-page spread. After this project, Ōtsuji joined the group as an official member. He contributed photographs made into autoslide projections for the 5th Experimental Workshop Presentation in 1953, and continued to photograph the group ' s events and rehearsals until they split up in 1957. Throughout the 1950s, Ōtsuji continued to experiment both with photographic expression and with the photographic apparatus. In 1956, he took a series of close-up photographs of Lake Ōnuma, and the slanted lines left behind on its frozen surface by ice skates. With none of the surrounding landscape depicted, the icy surface resembled gestural abstraction.Obinata Kin'ichi, "The Creation of Song Without Words – Kiyoji Otsuji’s 1956," 大辻清司 武蔵野美術大学美術館・図書館所蔵作品目錄 = Ōtsuji Kiyoji: Photographs in the Collection of the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, 36. He built his own camera and even devised a cinematic device called an "autoscope" that was used to project images at the Sekiya Industries booth at the Japan International Trade Fair in Tokyo in 1957. Beginning around 1965, Ōtsuji began to contribute written essays and articles to photography magazines frequently, publishing in Camera Mainichi, Camera Jidai, S D: Space Design, Shashin Hihyō, and others. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he also continued to experiment with his personal photography and publish his work, often alongside his written texts. In the 1970s, his published works became increasingly theoretical. A series of photographs for Asahi Camera, " Ōtsuji Kiyoji Experimental Workshop of Photography " (1975), featured both essays and photographs that considered the theoretical issues surrounding photography as a process and discipline. His series Hitohako no Kako ( " Past of One Tin Can " ) was created for his first solo exhibition in 1977, and featured a 23-photograph sequence showing a can of memories being unpacked and individual elements examined by the camera – including old photographs. The series can be seen as a prolonged meditation on the object, which had interested him since his early career. By the 1970s, Ōtsuji’s authority in the Japanese photography world had solidified, and in addition to publishing frequently, he was asked to become a regular guest in a series of roundtable discussions published in Asahi Camera titled " Roundtable: On Talked-About Photographs, " where he was joined by other prominent photographers. He participated in these discussions in 1974, from 1976 to 1978, and again in 1985. 9th–12th Bijutsu Bunka Exhibitions, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1949–1952 Ogawa Yoshikazu and Ōtsuji Kiyoji Two-Man Show, Takemiya Gallery, Tokyo, 1952 The 5th Experimental Workshop Presentation, Daiichi Seimei Hall, Tokyo, 1953 1st–3rd Graphic Group Exhibitions, Matsuya Department Store, Ginza, 1953, 1955–1956; 4th Graphic Group Exhibition, Konishiroku Gallery, Tokyo, 1956 From Space to Environment, Matsuya Department Store, Ginza, Tokyo, 1966 Past of One Tin Can, Prism, Tokyo, 1977 Exhibition Ōtsuji Kiyoji, Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, 1987 Ōtsuji Kiyoji 1948–1987 Exhibition, University of Tsukuba Gallery, Tsukuba, 1987 The Age of Modernism, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 1995 Ōtsuji Kiyoji Portfolio, Mole, Tokyo, 1997 Kiyoji Ōtsuji Retrospective: Experimental Workshop of Photography, National Film Center, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 1999 Kiyoji Ōtsuji and Fifteen Photographers, Tokyo Zōkei University Yokoyama Memorial Manzu Art Museum, Tokyo, 1999 Kiyoji Ōtsuji: Shūzō Takiguchi & Yoshishige Saitō on Photo, Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, 2003 Kiyoji Ōtsuji: Photographs as Collaborations, Shoto Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2007 APN Research, Kunsthalle Bern, 2012 Kiyoji Ōtsuji "Photographic Archive" : The Traces of the Photographer and the Art of His Era 1940–1980, Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo, 2012 Gutai: Splendid Playground, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2013 Jikken Kōbō: Experimental Workshop, Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 2013 Ōtsuji Kiyoji, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2013 For a New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968–1979, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2015 Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now, SF MoMA, San Francisco, 2016 Category:Japanese photographers Category:1923 births Category:2001 deaths Category:Photography Category:Surrealist a
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