KAWADA, Kikuji

About Japanese photographer Kikuji KAWADA (川田 喜久治, 1933 in Tsuchiura)

Kikuji KAWADA, representative of anti-naturalistic photography, became known above all for his examination of the traces of the Second World War in post-war Japan ('Chizu/The Map'). His later works are dedicated to subjects such as art history ('Seinaru sekai/Sacré Atavism') or motifs from astronomy and nature ('Rasuto kosumoroji/The Last Cosmology') and combine a subjectivist style with a universalist view.
After graduating with a degree in economics from Rikkyō University in Tokyo, the self-taught photographer began working as a freelance photographer in 1959, when the Fuji Photo Salon organized his first solo exhibition. In the years 1957-1959, he took part in the exhibition series 'Jūnin no me/Eyes of Ten' at the Konishiroku Photo Gallery in Tokyo. The group VIVO emerged from the circle of young photographers involved, alongside co-founder Kikuji KAWADA: Ikkō NARAHARA, Shōmei TOMATSU, Eikō HOSOE, Akira SATO and Akira TANNO. The aim of the group, which only existed for two years, was independence from the conventions of documentary and journalistic photography. He thus turned away from realistic reportage photography at an early stage and developed an independent, anti-naturalistic style that was to define the majority of his work. His large photographic cycles were preceded by works such as 'The Sea' (1959) on the subject of nuclear weapons testing. For his 'Youth' series in 1960, re photographed Japanese children, still close to the humanistically committed reportage photography typical of the time and widely practiced by leading photographers, and in particular to the work of his former patron Ken DOMON. In 1965, on the 20th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima, his photo cycle 'Chizu. The Map', taken between 1959 and 1965, was published in a book edition co-designed by graphic designer Kōhei SUGIURA. The 1971 cycle 'Seinaru sekai. Sacré Atavism', published in 1971, initially comprised six parts ('Parco dei mostri', 'Grotesque Garden', 'The Fantastic Castle', 'Microcosmos', 'The Hell' and 'Wax Man in Town', later expanded to include 'The Dream of the Stones'. Under the title 'Sekai gekijō. The Globe Theater', he finally compiled photo cycles from three decades into a trilogy, which was published in book form in 1998: 'Los Caprichos', 'Rasuto kosumoroji. The Last Cosmology' and 'Car Maniac'.

Photo books by and with works by Kikuji KAWADA

• 'Chizu/The Map' (1965, 2005, 2021 as 'Maquette Edition'); 'Seinaru sekai/Sacré Atavism' (1971); 'Rasuto kosumoroji/The Last Cosmology (1995, 2015); 'Sekai gekijō/The Globe Theater' (1998); 'Theatrum Mundi' (2003); 'The History of Japanese Photography' (2003, by Anne Wilkes Tucker, Dana Friis-Hansen, Ryūichi Kaneko, Joe Takeba); 'Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s' (ed. by Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian); 'Vortex' (2023);

read more