Hidekazu Shibaoka - Genshi - 2000

Genshi

Hidekazu Shibaoka
reve/2000/japanese/268*318*20

“Genshi” is a collection of works by Japanese photographer Hidekazu Shibaoka. Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1959, he enrolled in the Department of Photography at Osaka University of Arts in 1979, where he studied under Seiryo Inoue—one of the leading photographers of postwar Japan, who had also mentored Daido Moriyama—and graduated from Inoue’s seminar. Afterward, he joined the photography department at the prestigious commercial agency Nippon Design Center, and a few years later began working as a freelancer. This is a unique work that caused a stir at the time. Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Osamu Dazai, Soseki Natsume, Toson Shimazaki, Kafu Nagai, Kazuha Higuchi. While the names and portraits of these literary figures appear in succession, this is a “fiction” painstakingly created by Shibaoka. Using a “camera” that “captures” the “truth,” he entered the world of the past and created a visionary realm. “The Shibaoka World, which skillfully fuses the realism of portrait photography with the theatricality of fashion photography” (Kotaro Iizawa). Models include Sayoko Yamaguchi, Jun Togawa, and Tetsuya Chikushi.