Ishiuchi Miyako: Traces - by Lena Fritsch & Yasufumi Nakamori (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The first English-language survey of a pathbreaking figure in Japanese art.

One of the most influential figures in Japanese photography, Ishiuchi Miyako (born in Kiryū, Japan, 1947) has examined the traces of personal and social histories for more than half a century. Beginning in the early 1970s, she photographed locations connected to the ongoing US military presence in her hometown of Yokosuka, capturing what she has described as a combination of her own biography and the shadow of "liquor, girls, and soldiers, sex, and war." Over the following years, Ishiuchi, who originally studied textile design, switched to bold color to consider charged objects: the personal effects of her deceased mother, the artist Frida Kahlo's belongings, silk kimonos, and haunting garments held in the collection of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Ishiuchi was the first woman to receive the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award in 1979. She also represented Japan at the 2005 Venice Biennale and received the Hasselblad Award in 2014. This publication, the photographer's first comprehensive English-language survey, offers an indispensable introduction to an artist of enduring power.