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Sasuke
Following the survey monograph, this publication is dedicated to Masahisa Fukase’s emblematic series on his two cats: Sasuke and Momoe, combining unpublished and iconic images.
In 1977, Fukase turned his lenses on his new companion Sasuke. Growing up with felines, he decides with the arrival of this new cat in his life that it would become a photographic subject in his own right, fascinated by this creature full of life named after a legendary ninja. Sasuke disappears after ten days and the photographer sticks hundreds of small posters (as featured on the cover of the book) in his neighborhood. A person brings back his cat, yet it is not Sasuke but never mind he welcomes this new cat with as much affection. One year later, he takes a second cat named Momoe, entering the frame as well and he will never get tired of photographing their games. They become for the Japanese photographer a boundless experimental field leading to an extraordinary body of work in its technical and visual inventiveness.
As often in his work, this series shows a form of projection of the photographer into his subject. The cat, a faithful companion who never leaves him, takes the place of his wife, eternal heartache, later represented by the iconic fleeing crows.
His cats have been the subject of several books in his lifetime and Tomo Kosuga has dug into the photographer’s archives to conceive this ultimate book as the achievement of a series of publications devoted to his cats.
In 1977, Fukase turned his lenses on his new companion Sasuke. Growing up with felines, he decides with the arrival of this new cat in his life that it would become a photographic subject in his own right, fascinated by this creature full of life named after a legendary ninja. Sasuke disappears after ten days and the photographer sticks hundreds of small posters (as featured on the cover of the book) in his neighborhood. A person brings back his cat, yet it is not Sasuke but never mind he welcomes this new cat with as much affection. One year later, he takes a second cat named Momoe, entering the frame as well and he will never get tired of photographing their games. They become for the Japanese photographer a boundless experimental field leading to an extraordinary body of work in its technical and visual inventiveness.
As often in his work, this series shows a form of projection of the photographer into his subject. The cat, a faithful companion who never leaves him, takes the place of his wife, eternal heartache, later represented by the iconic fleeing crows.
His cats have been the subject of several books in his lifetime and Tomo Kosuga has dug into the photographer’s archives to conceive this ultimate book as the achievement of a series of publications devoted to his cats.
- GenresPhotographyJapanArt
188 pages, Hardcover
First published June 24, 2021
64 people want to read
About the author
Masahisa Fukase
22 books12 followersMasahisa Fukase (Hokkaido, 1934–2012) is considered one of the most radical and experimental photographers of the post-war generation in Japan. He would become world-renowned for his photographic series and subsequent publication Karasu (English title: Ravens, 1975 – 1985), which is widely celebrated as a photographic masterpiece. And yet the larger part of his oeuvre remained largely inaccessible for over two decades. In 1992 a tragic fall had left the artist with permanent brain damage, and it was only after his death in 2012 that the archives were gradually disclosed. Since then a wealth of material has surfaced that had never been shown before.
Fukase worked almost exclusively in series, some of which came about over the course of several decades. The works combine to form a remarkable visual biography of one of the most original photographers of his time. Fukase incorporated his own life experiences of loss, love, loneliness, and depression into his work in a surprisingly playful manner. His images are personal and highly intimate: over the years, his wife Yoko, his dying father, and his beloved cat Sasuke regularly featured in sometimes comical, at other times sombre visual narratives. Towards the end of this working life, the photographer increasingly turned the camera on himself. The vast number of performative self-portraits (precursors to today’s ubiquitous selfie) testifies to the singular, almost obsessive way that the artist related to his surroundings – and to himself.
Though Fukase has become almost synonymous with his atmospheric black-and-white Ravens, his buoyant abstractions in color, giant Polaroids, and wildly painted selfies reveal the artist’s inexhaustible resourcefulness and versatility. Work for Fukase rarely stopped after taking a photograph, as is evidenced by the experimental ways in which the artist presented his work – in print or as exhibitions – during his lifetime.
Fukase was born in the town of Hokkaido, Japan, in 1934, the son of a successful local studio photographer. He graduated from Nihon University College of Art’s Photography Department in 1956 and became a freelance photographer in 1968 following brief stints at the Nippon Design Center and Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishers.
His work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as MoMA, New York, the Oxford Museum of Modern Art, the Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. His work is held in major collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Getty Museum. He is also the winner of prizes including the 2nd Ina Nobuo Award, as well as the Special Award at the 8th Higashikawa Photography Awards.
Fukase worked almost exclusively in series, some of which came about over the course of several decades. The works combine to form a remarkable visual biography of one of the most original photographers of his time. Fukase incorporated his own life experiences of loss, love, loneliness, and depression into his work in a surprisingly playful manner. His images are personal and highly intimate: over the years, his wife Yoko, his dying father, and his beloved cat Sasuke regularly featured in sometimes comical, at other times sombre visual narratives. Towards the end of this working life, the photographer increasingly turned the camera on himself. The vast number of performative self-portraits (precursors to today’s ubiquitous selfie) testifies to the singular, almost obsessive way that the artist related to his surroundings – and to himself.
Though Fukase has become almost synonymous with his atmospheric black-and-white Ravens, his buoyant abstractions in color, giant Polaroids, and wildly painted selfies reveal the artist’s inexhaustible resourcefulness and versatility. Work for Fukase rarely stopped after taking a photograph, as is evidenced by the experimental ways in which the artist presented his work – in print or as exhibitions – during his lifetime.
Fukase was born in the town of Hokkaido, Japan, in 1934, the son of a successful local studio photographer. He graduated from Nihon University College of Art’s Photography Department in 1956 and became a freelance photographer in 1968 following brief stints at the Nippon Design Center and Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishers.
His work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as MoMA, New York, the Oxford Museum of Modern Art, the Foundation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. His work is held in major collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and The Getty Museum. He is also the winner of prizes including the 2nd Ina Nobuo Award, as well as the Special Award at the 8th Higashikawa Photography Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 17, 2024
This guy gets it!!!! Meow!!
January 6, 2025
[The pure experience of love]
"As Fukase himself said, he was most interested in photographing people to whom he was close.
"My moterial," he wrote, "always starts with what
is nearest, with the people I can just reach out and touch." However, his artistic impulse was also driven by something deep in his unconscious, which once unleashed ran entirely out of control. The people he was photographing would end up finding his behaviour overwhelming, even monstrous, and eventually, one by one, they abandoned him. The one presence that did not leave him, and stayed with him through thick and thin, gazing back at him unflinchingly, were his cats."
There is no love that surpasses the love between a cat and their owner, as Fukase also said "I wanted to photograph the love that I saw there."
This is a very heartwarming collection of pictures, capturing every single detail, and what is love but observing and noticing? especially the little things, the little details.
"As Fukase himself said, he was most interested in photographing people to whom he was close.
"My moterial," he wrote, "always starts with what
is nearest, with the people I can just reach out and touch." However, his artistic impulse was also driven by something deep in his unconscious, which once unleashed ran entirely out of control. The people he was photographing would end up finding his behaviour overwhelming, even monstrous, and eventually, one by one, they abandoned him. The one presence that did not leave him, and stayed with him through thick and thin, gazing back at him unflinchingly, were his cats."
There is no love that surpasses the love between a cat and their owner, as Fukase also said "I wanted to photograph the love that I saw there."
This is a very heartwarming collection of pictures, capturing every single detail, and what is love but observing and noticing? especially the little things, the little details.
February 4, 2022
amo amo a sasuke el gatito aventurero 🥺💙
October 24, 2023
A photographic love letter to cats
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews