Hiroh Kikai
JAPAN
Hiroh Kikai (1945-2020) was a prominent Japanese photographer known for his acclaimed book "Persona," which received prestigious awards in 2004. His body of work expanded with the publication of "Asakusa Portraits" in 2009 and "PERSONA The Final Chapter" in 2019. Kikai, originally trained as a philosopher, found his calling in photography after being inspired by Diane Arbus. Despite economic challenges, he remained dedicated to capturing the essence of humanity through his lens.
Starting in 1973, Kikai embarked on his renowned Persona series, photographing individuals in front of Tokyo's Sensoji Temple in the Asakusa district for over 40 years. Asakusa's vibrant atmosphere and its people reminded him of his hometown, driving his deep affection for the area. Kikai's portraits, a reflection of his introspection and the passage of time, offer a compelling depiction of the diverse faces and stories found in Asakusa, ultimately capturing the essence of what it means to be human.
Luigi Clavareau - in)(between gallery
• SERIES •
Asakusa Portraits
Asakusa Portraits
Kikai had started his Asakusa series of square, monochrome portraits as early as 1973, but after this there was a hiatus until 1985, when he realized that an ideal backdrop would be the plain red walls of Sensō-ji. At that time, the great majority of his Asakusa portraits adopted further constraints: the single subject stands directly in front of the camera (originally a Minolta Autocord TLR, later the Hasselblad), looking directly at it, and is shown from around the knees upwards. Kikai might wait at the temple for four or five hours, hoping to see somebody he wanted to photograph, and three or four days might pass without a single photograph; but he might photograph three people in a single day, and he photographed over six hundred people in this way. He believed that to have a plain backdrop and a direct confrontation with the subject allows the viewer to see the subject as a whole, and as somebody on whom time is marked, without any distracting or limiting specificity