GIAPPONE

20 Settembre
“JAPANESE TOUCH”
Autori: Masao Yamamoto


Masao Yamamoto breaks off the photographic convention which previews the negative is blowup.
Masao does not enlarge, nearly to render the effort of the spectator more difficult in deciphering the image. Before choosing photography, the artist studied painting; that’s why he’s aware that painting is a result of a creative process that is more spontaneous than the photographic one. This is the reason why he decides to intervene on photos in a singolar way, painting images, tearing the borders, putting in red lines, always painting his photos in a different way.
In his works never appears the shooting date, identification of the place, subtitles of the subject. His aim is to explore the border between contemporary art and photography.
Photos with small size that include immenses landscapes: a binomial that creates confusion.
Masao Yamamoto’s photos are things, objects, fragments of the world. The reality he wants to represent is a spiritual one. He forces us to see, to watch carefully, trying to understand the meaning... he takes up our sight so strongly to make amazing also your loosing in a 6x6 centimeters paper, in which, at first sight, it seems to be nothing special.

..."I believe that explain my job with words should be impossible"...

It is not easy to write about the works of Masao Yamamoto.
Chiara Galli

Understanding his work requires instinct, or personal intuition, and the works themselves are not ordinary.
Part of the reason these works are out of the ordinary is the way they are exhibited. Seeing one of his works for the first time, one is at a loss. Instead of a large photograph, the first thing one sees is the white wall. Where are the photographs?
They are there.
Numerous square photographs cling to the white wall like a large flock of birds flying across a light grayish sky.
One approaches them to take a closer look.
Like old photos from a grandmother’ s purse, the edges are frayed or gold specks stain the surface. They are not photos of family or friends, but they do seem to exist outside of time, evoking a melancholic sense of eternity.
Mount Fuji and a small cloud.
Glowing chrysanthemums against a dark background.
There seem to be similarities between the photos, but these similarities are not easy to understand. The meaning of each individual image extends beyond the boundary of the photo itself and becomes part of the whole installation. Through the white wall these photos cast a faint, unrealistic light over the entire gallery.
At a certain point, the viewer’ s thoughts rise above the group of images, and it seems possible for a moment to make sense of this world. Then the viewer’ s thoughts slowly return to our reality wrapped in the dim light of the white wall.
The magic does not end there.
There is also a white box, two meters square, set in the center of the room.
The entrance is a small square, and in order to enter the box, one must kneel down.
The interior of the box is even darker. A dim light shines through the opaque Plexiglas, filling the space.
Soon after entering the space, one is at ease. And one notices the single photograph on the facing wall. It is a photo of the sea with a single white horizontal line in the center.
Its effect is immediate.

Remaining quiet, one gradually becomes aware of the deep, relaxed state of mind this space inspires.
This space assimilates a Chashitsu.



The artist challenges the delicate power of this small space.
Through this particular experience, what Yamamoto’ s works present to us is not a product of intuition or coincidence, but rather the result of the artist’ s contemplation of Zen philosophy, especially of ‘wabi’ and ‘sabi’. The notion is that nature itself comes from intuitive recognition, which is necessary to express the beauty of imperfection, impermanence,
incompletion.
This idea originates from Senrikyu, the 16th-century philosopher of beauty. According to the notion of wabi sabi, he created Cha-no-yu, which excluded elements of vanity and expressed the purity of the Zen notion of beauty.

The simple ‘wabi’ is the extreme summation of all forms.
‘Sabi’ is the effect of the passage of time on the surface of something.
‘Nijiri-guchi’ is the entrance of the Chasitsu (tea room), and the act of passing through this small entrance is symbolic of how all men become equal and have freedom of thought.
In this room where tea is served, there is balance between man and the rest of the world.
Here, beauty is expressed in its most extreme form. It is a spiritual place to express ‘nothingness’, where one’ s mind is occupied with only a single thought.
Maybe “A box of Ku” is pointing to this.
By intently concentrating on beauty (as with Rikyu’ s placement of a single flower as a tea ceremony flower for Toyotomi Hideyoshi) maybe he aims at approaching the core by erasing its physical elements.
There is probably more to be said about Yamamoto’ s works.
But maybe this is not important.
Maybe these works say more about the artist himself than I have made it seem. If this is the case, it is all the more reason to engage with them. Everyone who comes into contact with these works will have his or her own experience.