Eikoh Hosoe's groundbreaking Kamaitachi was first published in 1969 in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. This exquisite volume has never before been available outside of Japan and has long been out of print. In homage to the creativity and craftsmanship of the original object, and in collaboration with the photographer, Aperture is delighted to re-create the unique artistry of this book. Each of the pages is printed as an individual gatefold, each of which opens to reveal a single, stunning black-and-white image. The exterior of each gatefold is printed in a spectacular azure blue. The effect of opening the book is of stepping into an unknown landscape of theater and baroque sensuality. Kamaitachi was originally published as a singular collaboration between photographer Eikoh Hosoe and the founder of Butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata. In 1965 Hosoe and Hijikata visited a small farming village in Tohoku, in northern Japan. Drawing in the villagers as performers and using the rice fields and rural landscape as a theatrical set for an improvisational Butoh performance, Hosoe photographed Hijikata's spontaneous interactions with the landscape and with the people they encountered.
Hosoe has called the project "a subjective documentary," an investigation of tradition and an exploration both personal and symbolic of the convulsions of Japanese society. It was inspired by the legend of the kamaitachi, a weasel-like demon who haunts the rice fields and slashes those who encounter him, as well as by the traditional dances of that region. "In what is called 'ethnic dance,'" wrote Hijikata, "we discover the truth that the more vulgar something is, the greater is the beauty expressed."
Eikoh Hosoe was born in the Yamagata Prefecture of Japan in 1933. Today he remains one of Japan's most important artists, not only for his own work but also as a teacher and as an ambassador fostering artistic exchange between Japan and the outside world. He is the founder and director of the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts and professor of photography at the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics. Hosoe lives in Tokyo and is represented by the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York.