MASAHISA FUKASE: THE SOLITUDE OF RAVENS

Your wife dumps you. What do you do? Some might celebrate by busting out the old bachelor gear and hitting the town. Others might sit teary-eyed at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of whisky and thumbing through dog-eared photo albums.

When photographer Masahisa Fukase’s wife left him, he caught the night train to his native Hokkaido and, over the next few years, shot a series of dark and disturbing pictures of ravens. Originally exhibited in the 1970s, “The Solitude of Ravens” can now be seen at Omotesando’s Rat Hole Gallery. Dark, grainy silhouettes of flocks in stormy skies create moods of loneliness and despair. This is balanced by sharp, angular close-ups that reveal the tough, brutal pragmatism of the birds, countering any slide into self-pitying sentimentality.

Through these stark images, Fukase seems to have found the means to both express and curtail his feelings.

Colin Liddell
Metropolis
3rd October, 2008

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