Tokyo-based artist Hisaji Hara, one of Japan’s most intriguing new photographers, is currently holding his first European solo exhibition at London’s Michael Hoppen Gallery...
Who: Tokyo-based artist Hisaji Hara, one of Japan’s most intriguing new photographers, is currently holding his first European solo exhibition at London’s Michael Hoppen Gallery.
What: On display is a series of monchrome portraits taken by Hara over the course of 5 years (2006 – 2011), each image reimagining a different painting by the famed 20th century artist Balthus. The Polish-French painter was both precise and classical in his approach to his (predominantly figurative) subject matter, although the manner in which he portrayed his subjects, in particular adolescent girls, was often considered subversive. Most of the Balthus images that Hara has chosen to recreate fall into this category, showing young girls in a way that hovers between child-like naivety and unselfconsciousness (as they read or languidly lounge about) and a somewhat sinister eroticism – typically demonstrated by bare, parted legs topped by short, revealing skirts. The viewer of such scenes finds themselves in the position of uncomfortable voyeur, catching the protagonists unaware in moments of youthful innocence.
"Hara imposes a beautiful air of dreamlike nostalgia upon his photographic reinterpretations, subtly setting them apart from the highly revered originals..."
Why: What makes the images so interesting is Hara's distinct vision behind the re-rendering process; he goes to meticulous lengths to capture the hazy, mysterious quality of the originals (using smoke machines and multiple exposures and focuses), yet imbues them with a sense of his own aesthetic, as well as his Japanese heritage. Every pose is lifted straight from the original but the setting and furniture mirrors, rather than replicates, those selected by Balthus – an intentional move by Hara who had much of the furniture made, or else used "found" props, and whose choice of location (a derelict Japanese medical clinic used in the 40s and 50s) notably recontextualises the new tableaux "studies". Particularly demonstrative of this is Study of The King of Cats, a recreation of Balthus's self-portrait with a cat, where Hara replaces the real animal that stands beside the artist in the initial work with two anime-like plastic toy cats, local to Japanese culture. Hara imposes a beautiful air of dreamlike nostalgia upon his photographic reinterpretations, subtly setting them apart from the highly revered originals and endowing them with a new significance to himself – as a Japanese artist – and to his specific medium and practice: an old-fashioned, very technical method of photography.
Hisaji Hara is currently on display at the Michael Hoppen Gallery and runs until March 31.
Text by Daisy Woodward
