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[Image]Masahisa Fukase Photo Exhibition: Yoko / Homo Ludens

©Masahisa Fukase Archives

Masahisa Fukase Photo Exhibition: Yoko / Homo Ludens

FUJIFILM SQUARE Photo History Museum Photo Exhibition

July 1 – September 30, 2025 (The exhibition closes at 16:00 on the final day)

PHOTO HISTORY MUSEUM

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Highlights

  • Interest in Japanese photography has continued to grow overseas in recent years. One photographer receiving particular attention is Masahisa Fukase, whose work has been featured in exhibitions and photo books, and whose life is the subject of the film Ravens (directed by Mark Gill and starring Tadanobu Asano and Kumi Takiuchi), released in spring 2025 in Japan. Fukase is among the photographers included in the FUJIFILM Photo Collection.
  • This exhibition presents 33 vintage prints featuring Fukase's former wife Yoko, from a series considered the starting point of his oeuvre, for the first time since his death.

About the exhibition

In the 1960s and the 1970s, Japan experienced a fertile era in which many emerging photographers pioneered new modes of photographic expression that broke with existing conventions. Among them, Masahisa Fukase (1934–2012) pursued an intensely personal vision and became a pioneering figure in shi-shashin (I-photography), seen as a distinctively Japanese mode of expression. He left an unparalleled mark on the history of Japanese contemporary photography. Since the establishment of the Masahisa Fukase Archives in 2014, which oversees his body of work, his reputation has continued to grow through exhibitions and the publication of photo books both in Japan and abroad. The spring 2025 release of the biopic Ravens (directed by Mark Gill and starring Tadanobu Asano and Kumi Takiuchi) is drawing even greater attention to his work.

Fukase's photography was consistently rooted in close personal relationships——with his family, his beloved cat, and even himself. Among these, a series of photographs of his former wife Yoko, whom he met in 1963, married the following year, and continued to photograph for over a decade, is essential to any discussion of his work. As Yoko herself wrote, “he lived with me for ten years, all the while looking at me only through the lens, and his images of me were unmistakably nothing but images of himself” (from “The Incurable Egoist,” One Hundred Photographers: Ther Their Faces and the Works, Camera Mainichi, A Separate Volume to Celebrate the 20 years of the Magazine, 1973). Frayed by a private life shaped, and even consumed, by the constant presence of the camera, the couple's marriage came to an end in 1976. Two years later, Fukase published the photobook Yoko (Asahi Sonorama). In April 2025 it was republished by AKAAKA Art Publishing, along with his debut photo book Homo Ludens.

Organized in cooperation with the Masahisa Fukase Archives, this exhibition features 33 vintage prints on view for the first time since Fukase's death. Taken in 1963, the year he met Yoko, the photographs show her wearing a black cape handmade by Fukase, set against the backdrop of the Shibaura slaughterhouse, Tokyo. Fukase, who continually explored the nature of his own existence through photography, once remarked, “My themes always come from things around me, things I can touch with my hands.” These works pose profound questions to viewers about the nature of self and other, and about the essence of photography.

Profile

Masahisa Fukase

Masahisa Fukase was born in 1934 in Bifuka-cho, Nakagawa-gun, Hokkaido. He graduated from the Department of Photography at Nihon University College of Art. After working at Nippon Design Center, Inc. and Kawade Shobo Shinsha, he became independent in 1968. Fukase's international career began in 1974 with his inclusion in the exhibition New Japanese Photography at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and his work has since been exhibited widely around the world. His most acclaimed series include Ravens, Yoko, and Family. In 1992, he suffered a fall that caused memory impairment and aphasia, and he died in 2012 at the age of 78. Ravens, widely regarded as his masterpiece, is internationally lauded as a milestone in Japanese photography. The Masahisa Fukase Archives was established in 2014. Through the work of the Archives, as of 2025, retrospective exhibitions have been held in 8 cities worldwide, and 13 photo books have been newly published.

Exhibition overview

Title FUJIFILM SQUARE Photo History Museum Photo Exhibition
Masahisa Fukase Photo Exhibition: Yoko / Homo Ludens
Dates July 1 (Tue) – September 30 (Tue), 2025
Time 10:00 – 19:00
(Until 16:00 on the final day. Entry is allowed for up to 10 minutes before closing.)
Open every day for the full duration of the exhibition.
Venue Photo History Museum, FUJIFILM SQUARE
Admission Free

* This exhibition is being held as a corporate MECENAT activity. We are pleased to announce that admission is free to enable more people to attend.

Number of works Total of 33 prints, 32 B5-size and one full-size, B&W (scheduled)
Original prints on silver halide photographic paper will be exhibited.
Organized by FUJIFILM Corporation
Supported by Minato City Board of Education
In cooperation with Masahisa Fukase Archives
Planned by Contact

* This exhibition may be cancelled or rescheduled for unavoidable circumstances. Visit FUJIFILM SQUARE online or call for updates.

Related Events

Gallery Talk

Dates / Times July 5 (Sat) / July 6 (Sun), 2025,  from 13:00, approx. 30–40 min.
Venue Photo History Museum, FUJIFILM SQUARE
Speaker Tomo Kosuga (Masahisa Fukase Archives)
Interviewer Masako Sato (exhibition organizer and Contact)
Admission Free
Reservations Not required

* Talk will take place in the photo exhibition area. Please note that there will be no seating available.
* Please note that the related events is subject to change or cancellation due to circumstances.

PHOTO HISTORY MUSEUM

~ History of Photography — more than 190 years ~

Not many museums focus on the historical evolution of the photographic arts and cameras like you will discover here. More than 190 years of history are recounted through exhibits of antique cameras and Fujifilm products, as well as periodic exhibitions of historically significant photos. You will revel at how photography has transitioned over the years.

MECENAT
Photo History Museum received the THIS IS MECENAT 2024 certificate by the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts as an act of creating society through art and cultural promotion.