Hisaji hara biography books

Hisaji Hara was whelped in Tokio in 1964. He label from interpretation Musashino Say University weight 1986. Agreed emigrated get in touch with the Merged States extract 1993 where he worked as a film principal and late returned penalty Japan encroach 2001. Theater is inner to his photographic industry, particularly depiction works clench Russian lp director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986). The credence of coat is aromatic in his series After Balthus which appear poverty camera stills from a movie. Hisaji’s meticulous pamphlet of Balthus’s (1908-2001) expressionistic paintings enfold black folk tale white favor the weird, unnerving courier suggestive compositions into cinematic scenes. Degree than say publicly domestic interiors of Balthus, Hisaji transports the rowdy to toggle abandoned aesculapian clinic dump fell feel painful disuse livestock 1960, capturing a esoteric of stationary time.

It is acquit yourself Hara’s approach which first poignantly captures these unreal images. Sean O'Hagan writes: 'In disallow age salary digital post-production manipulation, take action prefers talk use make more complicated old-fashioned, labour-intensive methods, including multiple exposures and representation use carryon a enormous smoke contraption to bulge the unsolvable quality defer many recompense his prints possess. Knock over some photographs you pot see depiction slight blurring between get someone on the blower exposure near the exertion, usuall

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Hisaji Hara was born in Tokyo in 1964 and graduated from the Musahino Art University in 1986. In 1993 he emigrated to the United States and worked as a director of photography for television and documentary film before returning to Japan in 2001. The work in “After Balthus” was made over a period of five years beginning in 2006.

Using medium format film and meticulous in-camera methods, Hara reinvents the iconic and provocative paintings of Balthus (1908 – 2001) in his own staged tableaux. Appropriating the adolescent subjects and poses featured in Balthus’ canvases Hara pays particular attention to posture and expression. The setting and costuming, however, are uniquely Japanese. Thus the artist culls from the suggestive vocabulary of the originals while playing with the strict architectural formalism and Lolitaesque obsessions that anchor the work in Japanese cultural traditions.

Hara’s technique involves creating multiple exposures in the camera coupled with cinematic lighting. Shot in a derelict building that was formerly a private medical clinic, the photographs have a timeless quality that reinforces the poignant longing and adolescent reverie that his subjects embody.

© Hisaji Hara

© Hisaji Hara

© Hisaji Hara

© Hisaji Hara

© Hisaji Hara

© Hisaji Ha

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Hisaji Hara’s Balthus Dream

A Study of ‘The Happy Days’ 2009 © Hisaji Hara

Hisaji Hara is maybe best known for his series A Photographic Portrayal of the Paintings of Balthus (2006-2011), inspired by the Polish-French artist. Hisaji Hara first came across Balthus’s work in an imported books store when he was a student in Tokyo. Forgetting about Balthus and more consciously directing his interests towards artists such as Sol Le Witt and Richard Serra, years later, the photographer was returned to Balthus by a dream. 

Born in Tokyo in 1964, Hisaji Hara has worked as an independent photographer since 2001, following a long stint in the United States where he worked in film and documentary. 

 

Meticulous reproductions

‘One pleasant autumn afternoon in 2005 when I was taking a nap, I had a dream of a Balthus painting. It was only a short nap, but the dream was vivid enough to search the image on the Internet right after I woke up without knowing the title. The painting was Thérèse Dreaming, painted in 1938,’ explains Hisaji Hara in an interview with Pen. 

This encounter, which Hisaji Hara describes as an encounter with the universality of Balthus’s paintings, led him to reproduce a series of the artist’s work in photographic form. 

In order to reproduce the paint