YOD Gallery is delighted to present “Genesis: Portraits of Artists in their Formative Years,” the second solo exhibition of Eikoh Hosoe since 2014. Photography, for Hosoe, has been ‘the art of relation between a photographer and a subject’. In producing a collaborative work entitled Barakei (‘Ordeal by Roses’, published in 1963) with the radical novelist Yukio Mishima, Hosoe has developed a procedure of what he calls ‘subjective documentary’ by exploring the essence of subjects through an intuitive eye. 

Constituting the basis of this exhibition is Hosoe’s latest published collection, ‘Genesis: Portraits of Artists in their Formative Years’ (2012), which is largely a compilation of portraits by Hosoe between 1967 and 1975. Artists interpreted in Hosoe’s works, including the writer Tatsuhiko Shibusawa and the Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, are today renowned for performing leading roles in various fields, ranging from the literary world to performance arts in Japan. 

Based on a survey for visitors of “Barakei: Ordeal by Roses” exhibition in 2014, this exhibition features eleven works showing artists including Taro Okamoto, Sawako Goda, Shuji Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo, Yoshiharu Tsuge, Simon Yotsuya, Kazuo Ohno, Min Tanaka, and Tamasaburo Bando, with a significant addition of large-sized photographic portrait of Yayoi Kusama that was specially produced for this exhibition.

“Genesis: Portraits of Artists in their Formative Years” presents vivid imprints of artists who Hosoe had faced as a young aspiring photographer.