“The Day The Dam Collapses”
Daylight Books,
2014 © Hiroshi Watanabe
Dear
Hiroshi,
I
received your beautiful book, "The Day The Dam Collapses." I'm moved by both the images and the text.
Actually I'm floored by the text. I relate to it in every way. You have put
into words what everyone ignores each day while trying to control their lives
and the lives of others around them. It is beyond Zen, even beyond Dharma taunting
the
principles of cosmic order.
I’ve
always been drawn to your work beginning with your book, Findings. Then I discovered your
theatrical images of traditional Noh Masks of the Naito Clan, Ena Bunraku puppets, Kabuki Players (I'm crazy about Marina Ema and Kazusa Ito), and
later, Suo Sarumawashi, the "Monkey
Dancing" portraits. You took a different turn in your series "Love Point,” photographing artificial Japanese
Sex Dolls as models, along with almost identical live models.
And
now, the images in your new book balance somewhere between the real world and
images pulled to form a single kigo. What is meant to be your point of
view in this work?
Hiroshi Watanabe: I have been
struggling to write my thoughts on the topic. Writing is always hard for me,
but this time is harder. I am not sure if I put words together correctly.
If
I have to say succinctly what my point of view is in this book, it will be
simply, “there is no point.” I don't know what the truth is for sure, and you
probably don't know it for sure, either. But I am thinking about it, and thus I
am curious. That is why I keep looking and I keep photographing. For me,
fact/reality comes first and my point of view later. This approach of mine is
probably the opposite of most artists'. Most artists start with ideas,
convictions, or sometimes by divine afflatus, to create something. They have
the talent and they have the intelligence; they have the goals and they lead
others to the artists' visions. They use art to convince others of their points
of views. But I sometimes wonder--isn't reality (things happening outside) much
more surprising and more creative than one can conjure up in his/her mind?
Isn't the outside world more interesting and intriguing than their closed "originality"?
EA: What came first; your
text, or your images?
HW: In my work, images
always come first. I photograph what I am intrigued
by--things that puzzle me and make me curious. Then I gather what I photographed
and start thinking about the images--why I photographed them--why
they are important to me, and so on..... then I edit them and put together
a body of work. Only after that, I start working on text. It is always
a struggle for me and I do it only to the extent that is necessary.
EA: What is your
"artist statement" for this work?
HW: Here is a small
section of the text from the book:
“Disaster
movies, like the ones with infernos, big earthquakes, or the arrival of aliens,
often begin with depictions of normal daily life. For instance, we watch a
mother trying to wake up a child, who resists getting up but then runs to
school without having breakfast, while the mother shakes her head as her
husband ignores the whole episode with his face buried in the newspaper. These
mundane scenes are usually avoided in other types of movies, but they bear
importance in disaster movies. The viewers know that what they are watching is
a disaster movie, and so they sense these mundane scenes are in fact preludes
to the terrible and unusual thing that will happen to the people on the screen.
What
is important here is the fact that while the audience anticipates it, the movie
characters do not know they may be involved in a huge, horrible disaster. The
audience is in a sense like prophets looking down from above the clouds on the
people who are living peacefully only because they are not aware of what is
about to happen.
The truth is, we are all living like the
characters in a disaster movie. We know we may some day face a disaster or a
terrible event, but we keep living calmly because we do not know exactly what
might occur and when it would be....”
“...someday I will be swallowed by the rush of
the water from the broken dam and die happily, without knowing the true meaning
of my life.”
–Watanabe,
Hiroshi. The
Day the Dam Collapses. Daylight
Books, Fall, 2014
EA: Have your children influenced
your observations in your life?
HW: I am almost hesitant
to say this because it is such a cliché, but it is true
that children teach parents much more than parents do children. Children
are curious about everything around them and they see small details that we
don't see. This morning, my son stopped on the way to school, squatted down,
and kept staring at a half-dried dying worm on the sidewalk until I told
him that we had to go. I would never have noticed it if he didn't make me
stop and look. This sort of things happens all the time. In my book, there are
many small lives dead or dying. I think I started noticing them because he
opened my eyes.
EA: How did this book -
as a whole - come about?
HW: Initially I did not
mean to start this body of work. After my son was born 6 years
ago, I could not carry my usual camera, a Hasselblad. Instead, I had to carry
the baby along with diapers and bottles when we went out. I was also asked
to take family pictures. So, I started to carry a small digital camera.
And I stopped looking around for some time. But then I started to see
things and I could not resist to photograph them. So, I used what I had--a
small digital camera to record what I saw. For five years, I took pictures
of things, without much intention, that I could not ignore. I saw and
photographed many small lives, dead or dying. Later I found these images
on my computer in between my happy pictures of my happy life. I gathered
them and I started to think why I took those pictures. That was how it
came about.
EA: You once told me over
the phone when I worked at photo-eye Gallery that you were either inspired by or
influenced by Richard Avedon's photographs.
HW: I remember talking
about Richard Avedon with you. I’m not exaggerating if I say he is the biggest
reason I got into photography. When I was in high school I saw the movie
"Blow up" by Michelangelo Antonioni. The photographer in that movie
was supposed to be modeled after David Bailey. I was young and I thought it was
"cool" to be a fashion photographer. With that reason and with my way
of avoiding the rigor of studying, I told my parents that I wanted to study
photography in a university in Tokyo.
Richard
Avedon was the most famous and coolest fashion photographer at that time, and I
dreamed to be someone like him. That is why I came to U.S. (although I went to
L.A. instead of N.Y.). Years passed and I happened to be in N.Y. around the
year 2000 when the Whitney Museum was doing a big exhibition of Richard
Avedon's work. There I saw his portrait work very closely and was amazed by the
impact of those photographs. For the first time I felt like I was facing and
staring at those famous people in person, as if I was just an inch away. Skin,
wrinkles, eyeballs, hair, and expressions were there to see.
Strangely
we always try not to see people's faces much when we stand in front of them. It
is not nice to stare at people. That is what we were taught. So, being able to
stare at faces for a long time was a big surprise for me. With photography we
can do that. Photography helps us to find, look, and study.
EA: Hiroshi, once again it
was great talking with you. Thank you for your time.
All
the best, Elizabeth.
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Daylight Books / Tosei-sha, Japan
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Photograph © Hiroshi Watanabe
Daylight Books, 2014. 88 pp., 66 color illustrations, 7½x9½"
Published in conjunction with Tosei-sha
Publishing Co., Japan
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