Seen: Nagarekumo Tabi / 流れ雲旅
Who: Kazuo Kitai / 北井一夫
Where: Biliken Gallery, Aoyama
When: May 28 - June 8, 2016
In the early 1970′s photographer Kazuo Kitai and his friend Yoshihara Tsuge, an underground manga artist, made several meandering trips together into the still-rough Japanese countryside. Nagarekumo Tabi (lit. “wandering cloud travels”) is a collection of Kitai’s pictures of their travels. Lacking anything but a vague destination but having theor cameras and film, these men (and sometimes Tsuge’s wife) photographed their encoutners with villagers, children, onsen-guests, and rural kabuki plays.
The exhibition features his vintage 8x10 prints- all smartly presented in plain wooden frames. Kitai’s distinctive handwriting denotes places and events- and often includes his signature. He’s one of the only photographers I am aware of who signs prints on the front side.
Nagarekumo Tabi can also be viewed as a photobook, recently published by WIDES publishing. It’s a great little book- well balanced, unpretentious, and at 2300 yen, quite affordable. The book is bilingual as well- It was an honor and a pleasure to have been asked to translate Kitai’s friendly text into English.
It’s interesting to experience these pictures in 2016- travels like these weren’t done for any other reason than a simple desire to get out there and take some photographs. Indeed, there’s a rough charm to these pictures that is absent in the filtered kind of Kinfolky achingly-authentic vibe that everyone’s set on now- it’s as if people photograph and digitally present their experiences today in a way to conform to an agreed on ideal rather than a true personal experience. Kitai’s saying “Look at this!” where the current cry is “Look at me! I did this too!”. There’s an honesty in Kitai’s pictures. Perhaps “authenticity” now, like the rich blacks in his contrasty prints, is something that people now view as a tool, a digital camera menu option- just another part of technique to accomplish a goal.