© Eikoh Hosoe

On May 6, 2010, Eikoh Hosoe was presented with the 18th-Annual Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement in Photography by the National Arts Club. This great evening was hosted by Master of Ceremonies Dr. Stanley Burns, President O. Aldon James, Jr., and Catherine Johnson, Chair of the Photography Committee, with whom I work very closely. The unbelievable list of previous honorees names some of my favorite artists, including Duane Michals (1994) and William Eggleston (2003).

© Eikoh Hosoe

Born in the Yamagata Prefecture of Japan in 1933, Mr. Hosoe has long been considered one of the most influential Japanese photographers working since WWII. The creativity found in his work becomes even more sensational when put into the context of Japanese culture and contemporary photography over 50 years ago. He joined his high school photography club in 1949, took top prize in the student category of the Fuji Photo Contest for his work Poddie Jawoski only two years later, and has continued to reinterpret the world through his photographs ever since. He is not only important for his own work, but also as a teacher and an artistic ambassador of Japan.

"Kamaitachi #17" © 1969 Eikoh Hosoe

One of Eikoh’s stories that I especially related to was about the making of Kamaitachi, his unique collaboration created with close friend and interpretive dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, the founder of ankoku butoh dance. The 1969 series is inspired by the legend of kamaitachi (‘weasel-sickle’), a weasel-like supernatural being who haunted the Japanese countryside of Hosoe’s childhood, slashing those he encountered with a sickle. The arresting images show Hijikata’s improvisational performance as a wandering ghost in a Northern Japanese farming village, a performance which also included local villagers. His use of fairy tales and his collaborative style of working with his subjects are both at the core of my own artistic pursuits.

(A new hardcover edition of Kamaitachi is available here through the Aperture Foundation, and is an absolute must-have for every collection.)

Eikoh Hosoe and Sean HusVar, May 6, 2010 (© Ben Gabbe)

Eikoh Hosoe is the founder and director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts and professor of photography at the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics. Hosoe lives in Tokyo and is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery in NYC, where his amazing prints are available for purchase. It was a pleasure to meet Eikoh—such a gifted artist, as well as a warm and incredibly giving person.

“To me, photography can be simultaneously both a record and a “mirror” or “window” of self-expression… The camera is generally assumed to be unable to depict that which is not visible to the eye. And yet the photographer who wields it can depict what lies unseen in his memory.”
—Eikoh Hosoe

© Marilyn Manson

Multimedia artist and provocateur Marilyn Manson has been a consistently subversive force in American popular culture for the past 15 years. Since his first nationally released album Portrait of an American Family, he has waged continuous aural wars against religion, the state, corporations, and the status quo. His second album, Antichrist Superstar, catapulted his career and put him squarely in the sights of conservative america. The album was a reflection on the growing pains of an artist, a commentary on both fame and the expectations it brings. Manson’s no-holds-barred approach to musical activism is often maligned by his critics and blamed for everything from school shootings to teenage suicides. However, his insightful responses in media interviews have shown his deep understanding of the concepts that he opposes.

Marilyn Manson interview with Bill O’Reilly:

Manson always teams up with incredible directors to create equally jarring visual accompaniment to his music, and the videos are often more controversial than the lyrics they contain. In “Coma White,” he is killed in an homage to the famous Zapruder Film of the JFK assassination. But he doesn’t stop there . . . His character is then hung on a cross, reminding us how our own culture tends to deify our own fallen leaders as martyrs.

Coma White:

Manson continues to challenge his audience to question accepted social mores and reinterpret their existence. While it is heavy hitting, his music remains palatable to a wide audience. He has managed to successfully ride the wave of pop-culture as it moves through time without compromising his musical vision and message. Since 2002, Marilyn Manson has extended his reach into the world of fine art with his watercolor paintings. His works feature simplistic forms and broad brush strokes, and while the imagery is often expectedly macabre, the mood is lightened by his colorful palette of washes. The two worlds collided with this image, which was the cover of his greatest hits album Lest We Forget.

Experience Is The Mistress Of Fools (© Marilyn Manson)

© Floria Sigismondi

The photographer and director Floria Sigismondi has a unique style that continues to develop throughout her career. Her dark contrast-driven imagery has a nouveau-surrealist feel to it that makes it intoxicating to experience. Each viewing is an opportunity to step into an alternate reality forcing you to reinterpret your own. Her work often contains political undertones, a challenge to question authority, and the social mores that define our culture.

Looking at some of her earliest work, the elements of her style were all present even if they hadn’t yet fully coalesced. Through the use of selective focusing and playing with time-scale, she not only created alternate universes, she created unique ways to experience these surrealist environments.

In 1997, she was nominated for Best Rock Video at the MTV Music Awards for Marilyn Manson’s “The Beautiful People” (1996), an almost abstract composition that juxtaposes the images of a rock performance, strange medical devices, and totalitarian orations. Her hard-hitting visuals are just as striking as the metal anthem that they support. The music video’s uncomfortable imagery rallied the conservative base and ignited much of the debate that helped to fuel Marilyn Manson’s shock-star rise in popular culture.

Her next major critical success was with Sigur Ros and their “Untitled” (2003), for which she won the Audio/Visual Award at the New York Underground Film Festival and Best International Video Award at the MTV European Awards. In this short film, we are sent to a post-nuclear-holocaust world where the children play in the ashes of the dead. Our perceptions are challenged not only by the environment but also her presentation, with quick cuts that contrast against the use of mixed frame rates, tilt-shifted focus, and the occasional slowing or reversal of time. All of these visual tools seem to perfectly complement the rich ambiance of the lush vocals and instrumentation, yet you are gutturally aware of the conflict in the time-scale being presented to your eyes in comparison to the rhythms gently pulsing in your ears.

2010 brings the opportunity to experience her second feature length film, The Runaways. Inspired by the 1970’s female rockband of the same name, the film follows two friends on their rise to stardom as they navigate the lessons shelled out by the streets of Los Angeles. This film has the potential to be a classic retelling of the “making and breaking of the band” theme.

I would love the opportunity to collaborate with such a gifted visionary. Her photographic works have inspired me as much as her films! I look forward to her continued progression as an artist.

If you’d like to see more of Floria’s work, I suggest you visit her website:

http://www.floriasigismondi.com

You can also visit her Wikipedia Article to see her full filmography.