Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 45

A Restatement: The Art of ‘Ground Zero’ (Part 20)
“Yasashii Bijutsu” and Takashi Tosu III


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. “Takamatsu, boat and crag.” All photos: From Nobuyuki Takahashi’s Twitter (@yasashiibijutsu). This photo posted November 15, 2014.

If there were distinguishing characteristics to Takashi Tosu’s photography, what would they be? One would be that many of the scenes are distant views. Why, then, did Tosu like shooting things in the “distance”? It is too late to find out the real answer. But that does not mean we cannot understand his state of mind. For Tosu, confined to a leprosy colony on Oshima in the middle of the Seto Inland Sea and unable to set foot off the island, these distant views represented more than just places that were far away in terms of physical distance. For him, they represented the “beyond” that he would never be able to reach. Accordingly, these scenes have a completely different meaning from the “distance” we are able to talk about readily. Capturing them with his camera no doubt constituted an extremely important action in the sense that he was able to reel in this “beyond” closer to “his side.” Even if you are separated from something by physical distance, if you use a telephoto lens the view becomes closer. Above all, if you print it so that it is small enough to hold in your hand, the scene can be turned into something close.

This is very important. It would seem that Tosu repeatedly shot ordinary seascapes and starry skies in an effort to turn these scenes not simply into memories or records, but into something “close.” We do not know if the absence of people from his photographs was the result of a choice by Tosu or not, but judging from the photos uploaded to twitter at least, it does not seem that Tosu took photographs (in the sense that we would) for the purposes of fixing the subjects in his memory. If anything, the impression that he had no clear objective in taking them is stronger, prompting us to ask such questions as, “Why did he take this photo?” and, “Why did he shoot this scene over and over?”

This vagueness of purpose is one of the main distinguishing characteristics I can sense when looking at Tosu’s photographs. However, when I take into consideration factors such as those outlined above, I think I can understand it in my own way. By this I mean that Tosu did not set out to photograph any actual subjects. If that way of expressing it is too strong, then it could be rephrased as follows: If you were to spend more than 10 years within the restricted location of an isolation facility and its environs, you would soon run out of things you wanted to photograph. Accordingly, if you still wanted to continue taking photographs, the only option would be to repeatedly tackle the same motifs. This is not the same as so-called fixed-point observation, and neither are there any materials left behind to suggest such a purpose. Above all, Tosu’s photographs actually look as if they clearly lack such purposiveness. Rather, one senses not that they are the “result” of something, in the sense of a discovery obtained by repeatedly shooting limited motifs, but that repeatedly taking photographs itself has become the purpose. If this is in fact the case, then it is only natural that the purpose of taking them should become less clear to people viewing them later. They portray not a “subject,” but the very “act” of trying to portray something.

If so, it would seem that what Tosu was seeking to obtain in return for this act was not the kind of simple memory-making that is so often the goal of photography, but reeling in the distant until it was close/by his side, or in other words “photographs as miniatures.” Or rather, I think we can call them simply “miniatures.”

This is most clearly demonstrated in the photographs of starry nights and celestial bodies. In the case of the harbor on the opposite shore, even if for Tosu this represented, for example, the realm of Buddhist enlightenment, from our perspective it is nothing more than an ordinary landscape we can cross to using a boat. However, for Tosu, who was prevented his entire life from even crossing to and setting foot on the opposite shore, scenes of harbors in the distance have more or less the same meaning as starry nights have for us. This being the case, probably the only thing that would enable Tosu and us to share this feeling would be celestial photography.


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. Sky as disc. (Posted October 16, 2014)


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. (Posted October 31, 2014)

A starry night is nothing more than just another ordinary distant view we see every day when night falls, as long as it is not raining or cloudy. However, no matter what kind of vehicle we use, we can never reach it. Celestial photographs are special in that, despite being nothing more than single frames from our ordinary lives, they are tinged with the extraordinary quality of distance. In this sense, irrespective of whether we are ill or not, we are able to share with Tosu this sensation through celestial photographs. This is because if we want to turn the starry night into something closer to us, the only way we can do it is to not only look through an astronomical telescope, but attach a camera to it and capture the scene in a photograph. Why? Because if we simply look through an astronomical telescope, when we try to see clearly the surface of the moon or the rings of Saturn, for example, these things in the distance only seem closer due to an optical effect. When we take our eye off the lens, the image is lost completely. In order to “miniaturize” it so that we can hold it in our hands, we need to not only look at it through an astronomical telescope, but also establish it as something close to us in the form of a print. Only upon doing this can the starry night become something “close” to us.

But why do people take celestial photographs in the first place? While one cannot say for certain that it lacks the kind of enjoyment people get from taking normal photographs, considering the invariability of starry skies and celestial bodies, it is difficult to imagine there is a simple objective behind the practice. Neither does this mean that all these people are taking celestial photographs out of some kind of expert-like motivation such as “observation.” Rather, I think what is being aimed at is probably some kind of single-minded activity such as the desire to reel in distance closer to oneself. Regardless of the amount of information such as the observation time or bearing one enters on each single photograph, there is unlikely to be any significant difference in the starry night or celestial bodies depicted therein. So much so that one could probably say that, compared to normal landscapes or expressions on the faces of people, there is no difference whatsoever. If notwithstanding this people’s curiosity is drawn to photographing celestial bodies, then I think this would result in the emergence of a sentiment very similar to Tosu’s.

Another characteristic of Tosu’s photographs is that things resembling tiny specs of dirt are prominent across the entire picture plane, producing a peculiar effect. As described above, Tosu preferred taking photographs of things in the distance, so in the photographs of the port of Takamatsu across the Seto Inland Sea, and of the blue sky stretching above it, and in particular in the photographs of starry nights, these specs of dirt are interwoven with the light particles of the stars, to the extent that at a glance it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. What on earth is going on here?


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. (Posted November 7, 2014)

Possible explanations include that Tosu had very few opportunities to overhaul his camera, that when developing his film he did not have access to an environment that enabled him to successfully remove dirt or dust from the photographic paper, or a combination of these two. As well, because he suffered from leprosy, the possibility that there was a problem with his eyesight cannot be ruled out. Whatever the reason, however, the world covered with these specs of dirt or scratches is remarkable.

After all, the world we live in is full of specs of dirt and dust. With a photograph, we can create a view that is clearer than that of the human eye by removing as much of this extraneous matter as possible, but in fact the world seen with the human eye exists with this noise still intact. And while it is somewhat difficult to believe that Tosu anticipated such effects, surely I am not the only one to sense that Tosu’s photographs, in which even things in the distance are covered in specs of dirt or dust, close in more than those of any other photographer on the flesh-and-blood world that has hitherto been hidden on the basis of the premise “photograph = fabrications.”


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. Judging from the shots before and after on the roll of film, this shot was taken after he made the bus stop mid-journey on a visit home. (Posted October 25, 2014)


Takashi Tosu – Oshima leprosy sanatorium. Pawpaw, in growing darkness, number 3. Taken very late in Tosu’s life. (Posted October 21, 2014)

And so these photographs by someone whose identity remains obscure and whose name is probably a pseudonym continue to gather dust on Oshima, a small island in the Seto Inland Sea. Just who was he? Any hope of finding the answer to this question has vanished. But by adopting the audacious method of assuming his name, Nobuyuki Takahashi’s “Yasashii Bijutsu” is seeking to step up to and unite with the distant view of this out-of-focus entity and from there give birth to another Takashi Tosu. The origins of the Japanese word yasashii (gentle) apparently lie in a term meaning “to lose weight.” To be gentle means yielding half of one’s existence to another, so this is probably true. And it is probably the kind of existence Takahashi’s “Yasashii Bijutsu” has in mind.

This kind of unknown existence method can only be found on islands and in air, sea and starry nights covered with specs of dirt and dust. We often refer to this kind of thing using terms like “local art,” but summarizing it in this way itself is the result of asking the wrong questions to begin with. I have no doubt that the art at Setouchi and the art Fram Kitagawa dreams of are far more vivid and compelling.

Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 1-6

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