Japanese Contemporary Photography: Re-discovering Female Identity

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Notes

¹ FRUiTS magazine, published by the fashion photographer Shōichi Aoki from 1997, is one of the most outstanding examples of the new use of photography. In 2001 a single volume with excerpts from FRUiTS was published by Phaidon Press.

² The photographers whose works were shown on that occasion were Yurie Nagashima, Saori Tsuji, Masa Kobayashi, Mie Iizuka, Yasuko Shiratsuchi, Kohide Nakashima, Ayako Kaneko, Aiko Nakano, Yukari Ojima, Maya, Mariko Takahashi, Miwa Tosaki, Manaco Okamoto, Kumi Oka, Aya Fujioka, and Mika Ninagawa.

³ The 10 female photographers selected for the show “Mito Annual ‘99. Private Room II—Photographs by a New Generation of Women in Japan” were Jun Kanno, Satomi Shirai, Yurie Nagashima, Aiko Nakano, Mika Ninagawa, Rika Noguchi, Keiko Nomura, Mikiko Hara, Maki Miyashita, and Kaori Yamamoto.

⁴ The concept of the “female principle” had alredy been presented by Miyasaka Chizuru in 1984.

⁵ The translation of the title as Blooming Life was chosen by myself and the artist for the first exhibition of her work outside Japan. The show took place in the city of Brescia in Italy in 2008.

⁶ Murasaki Shikibu (973–post 1013?) was a gentlewoman of the Imperial Court in the service of the Second Queen Akiko from the year 1005, under the reign of Emperor Ichijō (reign 986–1011). She is referred to as Shikibu after her father, Tametoki, a member of the Fujiwara family and governor of the province of Echizen, while the Murasaki side of her name refers to the main character in her literary masterpiece, The Tale of Genji. Murasaki shikibu nikki (Murasaki’s Diary), compiled by the same Murasaki Shikibu, describes events at court between 1008 and 1010.

⁷ Sei Shōnagon (ca. 966–?) was a gentlewoman of the court in the service of the First Queen Sadako, and became the Imperial consort of Emperor Ichijō between 991 and 1000. She was the daughter of Kiyonara no Motosuke, who was governor of several provinces as well as a poet. She is known for the famous work Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book) which is a kind of list of events, anecdotes, and records in both prose and poetry, which was compiled in 1002.

⁸ Izumi Shikibu (974–?) became an official companion to the Second Queen Akiko in 1008, three years after Murasaki. She was the daughter of governor Ōe Masamune, and thus, like Murasaki, was given the title of Shikibu. She had an adventurous and, at times, scandalous love life. She first married and then later became the lover of several princes. She is remembered as the greatest poetess of her era.

⁹ Individual sheets are all that now remain of the Genji monogatari emaki: 28 of calligraphy and 20 painted. They are divided for conservation purposes into the 16th and 17th centuries and held at the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya and the Gotoh Museum in Tokyo.