Miyako Ishiuchi

Ishiuchi Miyako was born in Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture, and moved with her family to Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 1953. The J. Paul Getty Museum’s “Postwar Shadows” explains that Yokosuka became a city with a U.S. naval base after 1945, and that this postwar setting is important for reading Ishiuchi’s early work^*1. In Yokosuka, the U.S. military base, American films, pop music, and the daily lives of people working near the base overlapped. The Getty records that Ishiuchi felt both an attraction to Western culture and an aversion to the base^*1. Ishiuchi studied design at Tama Art University and later moved into dyeing and weaving. The Getty exhibition text explains that, during the student movement of the late 1960s, she studied textile design, left the university before graduating, and turned toward photography in 1975 after obtaining a camera and photographic equipment^*1. Her entry into photography came from equipment that remained at home and from a darkroom she made there, rather than from a plan to become a photographer. In an SFMOMA interview, Ishiuchi also says that because there was an extra room and darkroom equipment in the house, she built a darkroom on the second floor^*5. From 1976 to 1977, Ishiuchi returned to Yokosuka on weekends to photograph Yokosuka Story. The Getty notes that the work was made on foot and with the help of her mother’s car; her mother had worked as a driver for the U.S. military^*1. The same city had already been photographed by Tōmatsu Shōmei as a place through which to consider post-occupation Japan. A Sophia University essay argues that Tōmatsu saw Yokosuka and other base towns as realities that did not match the bright postwar image produced by the state, while Ishiuchi photographed the city as a place where she had grown up, avoided, and then returned^*14. Ishiuchi later received the Kimura Ihei Award for Apartment, and expanded her work through Endless Night, 1·9·4·7, Scars, Mother’s, hiroshima/hiroshima, and Silken Dreams. In the 2017 exhibition Grain and Image, the Yokohama Museum of Art focused on Ishiuchi’s “grain” through approximately 240 works from thirteen series, ranging from early work to previously unexhibited photographs^*3.

Why Photography Began: The Darkroom and Dyeing and Weaving

Ishiuchi’s photography did not begin with a clearly defined subject or professional identity. In an SFMOMA interview, she says that she did not begin because she intended to become a photographer; there was an unused room and darkroom equipment in the house, so she made a darkroom on the second floor^*5. A Tokyo Art Beat interview reports that she experienced photographic paper as something close to cloth, and that she was drawn to the way grain emerged in the developing solution^*20. In an Ocula interview, she recalls that the smell of glacial acetic acid used in dyeing and weaving during her student years connected with the stop bath in the darkroom, and that photography felt close to dyeing^*21. For Ishiuchi, photography became an act of making an image with chemicals, paper, light, and manual work. Her experience of looking at the condition of cloth and thread became linked to a way of seeing photographic paper, grain, the density of black, and the wear of surfaces.

Yokosuka: Rephotographing Postwar Documentary from Within

Yokosuka in Yokosuka Story is not a city record that explains a town with a U.S. military base from the outside. The Getty exhibition text explains that, for Ishiuchi, Yokosuka was a place where the American flag she saw in movie theaters, her mother’s work near the base, anxiety as a woman, and memories of girlhood overlapped^*1. The Sophia University essay compares Yokosuka Story with Tōmatsu Shōmei’s photographs of occupation, and argues that the two photographers looked at the same city from different positions^*14. For Tōmatsu, Yokosuka was a place through which to consider the power relationship between Japan and the United States after the occupation, and areas such as Dobuita Street and Honchō, where the presence of the U.S. base was strongly visible, carried particular importance. The Sophia University essay explains that photographers who came from outside, including Tōmatsu, Moriyama Daidō, and Nakahira Takuma, strongly framed Yokosuka as a city around the U.S. military base, while Ishiuchi felt that this view alone did not correspond to the Yokosuka she knew^*14. Ishiuchi included not only sites that easily became signs of the base, but also landscapes removed from touristic markers of Yokosuka, such as Nobi Beach, Nagasawa Beach, clouds, walls, and roads. The Sophia University essay argues that this selection keeps Yokosuka Story from making the city remembered only through Dobuita Street and Honchō^*14. In an interview with The Fashion Post, Ishiuchi says that her early photographs of Yokosuka and apartments were easily misunderstood as documentary, and that she had long said she was not a documentary photographer and was not working to communicate or to record^*29. In the same interview, she also says that she came to accept that photographs become records and inevitably communicate something as a result^*29. Ishiuchi’s Yokosuka was a body of work made by returning to the place where she grew up and photographing the postwar realities that remained there.

Cloth and Paper: Reading Mother’s through Textile Research

The experience of handling materials while looking at the weave of thread, the thickness of cloth, abrasion, the absorption of color, and texture later informed Ishiuchi’s attention to the state of photographic paper, grain, the density of black, and the wear of walls and skin. The Sophia University essay notes that Ishiuchi regarded photographic paper as close to cloth and spoke of printing photographs as if dyeing or weaving them, and it presents darkroom work as central to her photography^*14. Feminist research on postwar Japanese art has also examined how women artists’ activities and representations of the body were obscured within art institutions^*28. The underwear, lipstick, dresses worn by atomic bomb victims, meisen kimono, and silk that Ishiuchi photographs gain meaning as things worn and used in daily life, outside broad genre divisions in art. Jules Findley’s doctoral thesis at the Royal College of Art refers to Mother’s within a practice-based study of how complicated grief can be addressed through paper and textile work. Findley notes that Ishiuchi had studied weaving, photographed her late mother’s clothing before letting it go, and pictured underwear as an object that retains an impression of the mother’s body^*22. Findley reads the lipstick, nail polish, dentures, and underwear placed one by one on clean backgrounds as objects that, after the mother’s death, have suddenly lost their everyday role and become reminders of an absent body rather than ordinary possessions within a home^*22. Findley also states that Ishiuchi’s photograph of her mother’s underwear influenced her own paper-based work^*22. Carole Hunt’s textile research argues that clothing and cloth can hold and transmit both private and public memory^*25. The clothing, underwear, cosmetics, and shoes in Mother’s become an entry point into the life of one woman who lived from the wartime years into the postwar period, through the things she wore and used.

From Housing and Red-Light Districts to Skin

In Apartment, the subject is not the human face but the walls, tatami, windows, staircases, and dark interiors of housing. SFMOMA’s Apartment #69 is recorded as a 1978 gelatin silver print, and The Third Gallery Aya’s biography confirms that Ishiuchi received the fourth Kimura Ihei Award in 1979 for the series^*6. The Getty exhibition text explains that, drawing on the memory of the modest apartment building in Yokosuka where she lived for thirteen years, Ishiuchi searched for old apartments in Tokyo and other cities and photographed interiors, corridors, and traces of residents^*1. In Endless Night, her gaze moves to former akasen districts, former licensed quarters, and the buildings of night streets. In an AWARE interview, Ishiuchi says that photographing the former pleasure quarter in Yokosuka was a critique of the commodification of women’s bodies and also a way of relating herself to other women^*2. In 1·9·4·7 and Scars, the gaze that had been directed toward buildings moves to hands, feet, skin, and scars. SFMOMA’s “What is a scar?” describes Scars as a series of close-up photographs of the traces of injury, and presents Ishiuchi’s view of scars as something close to old photographs, proof that someone has survived^*5. Housing, former red-light districts, and skin appear to be different subjects, yet each is photographed as a place where the time people have spent remains in walls, floors, skin, and wear.

Clothing of Atomic Bomb Victims and Silk: From hiroshima to Silken Dreams

In hiroshima/hiroshima, clothing and personal effects of atomic bomb victims preserved by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum are photographed in natural light or on a light table. Jani Scandura’s essay begins from the premise that representations of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima are often expected to carry clear antiwar and peace messages and a grave tone^*26. Scandura focuses on the fact that Ishiuchi’s hiroshima/hiroshima does not explain the hypocenter or the devastation; it asks viewers to look at the embroidery, seams, patterns, burns, wear, fraying, and holes in clothing^*26. Burns and holes mark damage, while patterns, embroidery, sewing, and the choice of fabric show that the garments were worn in everyday life before the bombing. In an interview with the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Ishiuchi also explains that she is not photographing atomic bomb materials as records, but photographing things she encounters in the same time and space through her own way of seeing^*30. In the same interview, she notes that many male photographers who photographed Hiroshima worked through recording, antiwar messages, and appeals to peace, and says that she does not add captions in order to open another way of seeing^*30. For this reason, hiroshima/hiroshima shows the damage of the atomic bombing as history while returning the viewer’s attention to the body size, taste, grooming, and daily life of the people who chose and wore those clothes. Melissa Best’s essay also argues that the series expands the relation among the lives of atomic bomb victims, individual identity, the memory of war, and national memory through clothing and personal effects^*27. In Silken Dreams, the interest in silk that grew out of Hiroshima’s clothing turns toward meisen, cocoons, silk mills, and textile factories in Kiryu. MIMOCA explains that, while making hiroshima, Ishiuchi encountered many silk textiles, and because Kiryu, her birthplace, was a textile-producing region, she began photographing silk as a subject from 2010 onward^*23. The Seigensha edition of Silken Dreams presents the work as one that connects Ishiuchi’s personal history, the silk industry of modern Japan, the women who supported it, and her hometown of Kiryu^*24. Ishiuchi’s attention to cloth does not treat her mother’s clothing, the clothing of atomic bomb victims, and Kiryu silk as separate subjects. Through cloth that has been worn, used, damaged, and preserved, her work expands into a method of photographing objects touched by the lives, labor, and bodies of women who lived through the postwar period.

Yokosuka Story, 1976–77

Yokosuka Story is Ishiuchi’s point of departure, a series that approaches Yokosuka through both the memory of postwar Japan’s base city and the photographer’s own past. The Getty exhibition text explains that the work was exhibited in 1977 and made a strong impact on the photography world^*1. MoMA records Untitled #5 as a gelatin silver print made in 1977 and printed in 1994; its coarse grain and black borders show the series’ formal characteristics^*4. The Sophia University essay cites Ishiuchi’s statement that a “dark Yokosuka with rough grain” does not exist in reality, and reads the work as a Yokosuka made from selective and vulnerable memory rather than as an objective record of an actual city^*14. The photobook describes Yokosuka as a social issue and also revisits a place the photographer had avoided, through walking, photographing, and printing in the darkroom.

Apartment, 1977–78

Apartment moves the memory of Yokosuka into urban housing. The Getty explains that, working from the memory of the modest apartment building where Ishiuchi lived in Yokosuka, she searched for old apartments in Tokyo and other cities to photograph^*1. SFMOMA’s Apartment #69 is a gelatin silver print made in 1978; the photograph concentrates on walls, darkness, windows, and interior wear rather than on human faces^*6. The Getty also notes that Ishiuchi wanted the rooms and buildings photographed in different places to appear like one imaginary apartment building^*1. The series received the fourth Kimura Ihei Award, and from early on Ishiuchi used both photobooks and exhibitions to keep her work in circulation. In a recent Aperture interview, she says that photobooks were important as records of exhibitions because photography exhibitions at the time lasted only briefly, and that Apartment and Yokosuka Story were self-published^*16.

Endless Night, 1978–80

Endless Night is a series photographing former akasen districts, former licensed quarters, and buildings in night streets. In an AWARE interview, Ishiuchi says that photographing the former pleasure quarter in Yokosuka was a critique of the commodification of women’s bodies and also her way of relating to other women^*2. The National Museum of Art collection search lists works from Endless Night photographed in 1978–80 and printed in 1993, including Nakamura akasen district, Yasuura, Tobita Shinchi, Hashimoto, and Noge^*15. Bodies are not shown directly in this group of works. Instead, exterior walls, staircases, rooms, and the atmosphere of night are photographed as places that retain traces of institutionalized sex and labor.

1·9·4·7 and Scars

1·9·4·7 is a series of hands and feet of women born in 1947, the same year as Ishiuchi. It looks at the body through surfaces marked by age, without relying on faces or names. Tokyo Museum Collection records the related work #28 from 1906 to the skin as a gelatin silver print from 1991–93^*7. SFMOMA’s Scars #12, New York is a 1994 gelatin silver print in which a scar is treated as part of the body and fills the frame^*17. SFMOMA’s video commentary presents Ishiuchi’s view of scars as something close to photographs that have accumulated time, rather than simply as records of injury^*5. Here, the scar is photographed not as a word explaining pain, but as something that shows, on the skin, the time a person has lived.

Mother’s and hiroshima/hiroshima

Mother’s is a series photographing her mother’s clothing, cosmetics, underwear, shoes, and other belongings, and was shown in the Japan Pavilion at the 2005 Venice Biennale. The official Japan Pavilion page records the exhibition as a project that approaches the portrait of one woman through the belongings of Ishiuchi’s mother, who lived through the wartime and postwar years^*8. The Met’s Mother’s #36 [lipstick] is a chromogenic print made in 2002 and printed in 2018; through the surface of the cosmetic object, it indicates both contact by the owner and her absence^*9. Findley’s doctoral thesis reads Mother’s as a work that photographs clothing and everyday objects left after the mother’s death and handles them between letting go and preservation^*22. Although her mother is not photographed, the underwear and cosmetics had touched the body in everyday life, and Ishiuchi preserved them by photographing them one by one rather than gathering them into memorial objects. Lipstick, nail polish, dentures, and underwear placed on clean backgrounds appear at a different distance from when they belonged inside the home, and they show both the mother’s life and her absence. In hiroshima/hiroshima, Ishiuchi photographs clothing and personal effects of atomic bomb victims held by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. SFMOMA’s hiroshima/hiroshima #71 is a chromogenic print made in 2007 and printed in 2016, in which the color, pattern, tears, and seams of cloth occupy the center of the image^*10. Scandura’s essay, after noting the gravity often expected of representations of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, reads Ishiuchi’s shift of attention toward the details of clothing^*26. Burns and holes are traces of damage, but patterns, embroidery, seams, and the quality of the fabric also show the time in which victims chose and wore the garments as clothing. Ishiuchi herself has said that she saw the clothing from Hiroshima not as atomic bomb materials but as dresses that she herself might have worn^*30. Melissa Best’s essay also argues that the series expands the relation among the lives of atomic bomb victims, individual identity, the memory of war, and national memory through clothing and personal effects^*27. hiroshima/hiroshima treats the atomic bombing as a larger history while refusing to confine the victims to the word “victim.” By showing the color, pattern, seams, and texture of clothing, it returns the memory of war to the bodies and daily lives of the individuals who once wore those garments.

Frida by Ishiuchi

Frida by Ishiuchi is a project photographing Frida Kahlo’s personal belongings. Michael Hoppen Gallery introduces it as a series in which Ishiuchi photographed items from the Blue House that had been sealed after Kahlo’s death and organized in 2004^*12. Shiseido Gallery explains that the personal objects, photographed on 35mm film in natural light, bring out traces of Kahlo’s body and life without fixing her in an image of suffering^*11. Her mother’s belongings, the clothing of atomic bomb victims, and Kahlo’s personal effects belong to different histories. They share a method of making a portrait without photographing the person, through surfaces that touched skin, traces of use, and textures changed by time.

Silken Dreams

Silken Dreams is the work in which Ishiuchi’s attention to cloth extends from Hiroshima’s clothing to silk in Kiryu. MIMOCA explains that, while making hiroshima, Ishiuchi encountered many silk textiles; because Kiryu, her birthplace, was a textile-producing region, she began photographing meisen, cocoons, silk mills, and textile factories from 2010^*23. MIMOCA also explains that meisen, which was popular during the Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa eras, suggests how women of the time enjoyed fashion^*23. The Seigensha edition of Silken Dreams presents the work as a path of silk beginning with hiroshima and continuing toward the silk industry, modern Japan, women’s labor, and Kiryu, Ishiuchi’s hometown^*24. Here silk is photographed as a material in which modern Japanese industry, women’s labor, the memory of place, and Ishiuchi’s own personal history overlap.

Ishiuchi’s reception grew through photography awards and exhibitions in Japan, museum collections abroad, and international exhibitions. The Third Gallery Aya’s biography lists the 1979 Kimura Ihei Award for Apartment, her representation of Japan at the 2005 Venice Biennale, the ongoing hiroshima/hiroshima series that began in 2007, the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2013, and the 2014 Hasselblad Award^*13. The Getty’s “Postwar Shadows,” published on Google Arts & Culture, introduces Ishiuchi as an artist who entered the male-dominated Japanese photography world in the mid-1970s and connected personal experience with the political memory of postwar Japan^*18. The Hasselblad Foundation’s 2014 award statement values her work for exploring the relationship between the personal and the political in memory^*19. Within photo history, Ishiuchi’s work occupies a position between documentary photography, which explains social events from the outside, and private photography that foregrounds the photographer’s inner life. The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum’s materials for the Araki Nobuyoshi exhibition connect Sentimental Journey with Araki’s “declaration of shishashin,” and describe a current in which private time with his wife became central to the photographs^*31. In Ishiuchi’s case, Yokosuka, apartments, her mother’s belongings, and the clothing of atomic bomb victims are personal subjects that lead outward to postwar Japan, a base city, women’s lives, and the memory of war. This position is also supported by Ishiuchi’s statement in The Fashion Post interview that her work is “not a record,” while she also accepts that photographs become records and communicate something as a result^*29. The comparison with Tōmatsu Shōmei makes this difference concrete. Tōmatsu looked at postwar Japan through bases and occupation; Ishiuchi photographed the same Yokosuka as a place where she had grown up, avoided, and returned^*14. AWARE’s artist text traces Ishiuchi’s movement after 1·9·4·7 toward the body, scars, her mother’s body, and personal effects, confirming that her work continued to address time and traces as it moved from place to body and belongings^*2. Kasahara Michiko’s text for the 2005 Venice Biennale Japan Pavilion reads Mother’s as the portrait of one woman, Ishiuchi’s mother, and also as the portrait of a predecessor connected to independent women in Japan today^*8. Research on cloth and clothing also supports this position. Findley reads Mother’s through the study of the mother’s clothing, paper, and loss, and shows how clothing and everyday objects can become media that carry the mother’s life^*22. Scandura reads hiroshima/hiroshima as a work that approaches the everyday lives of atomic bomb victims through the details of clothing, beyond the frame of atomic bomb documentary photography alone^*26. Ishiuchi Miyako’s photographs are best understood as photographs that show social history through personal subjects, across shishashin, postwar documentary, and feminist photography. Her contribution lies in placing society and the individual within the same image through concrete traces left in walls, skin, clothing, and personal effects, and in expanding photographic realism beyond the objective explanation of events.