Masahisa Fukase - Ravens

Masahisa Fukase
Ravens

Published by MACK, 2017
Size: 26.3 x 26.3 cm
136 Pages
Hardcover
Languages: English, Japanese

“‘Ravens’ is one of the major bodies of work in the history of photography and a high point of the photobook genre. This accumulation of accolades and the passage of time have obscured many of the fascinating details that explain the artist’s preoccupation with this motif throughout his work. It was not simply a reflection of the existential angst and anhedonia he suffered throughout his life, but manifested itself as an artistic self-identification with the raven and ultimately resulted in a solitary existence and an artistic practice bordering on madness. And all this before a premature accident in 1992—a fall down the stairs of his favorite bar—left him spending the last twenty years before his death with his consciousness suspended and in medical isolation. Fukase became the singular raven frozen by his camera and immortalized on the cover of his most famous book.”

-Tomo Kosuga from his essay Cries of Solitude [2017]

Constantly proclaimed as one of the most important photobooks in the history of the medium, Japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase's Ravens was first published in 1986, and the two subsequent editions were both small print runs that sold out immediately. This new edition contains a new text by Tomo Kosuga situating the body of work within Fukase's oeuvre and life, illustrated with numerous newly discovered photographs and drawings. Fukase's haunting series of works was created between 1975 and 1986 following a divorce and was apparently triggered by a sorrowful train journey to his hometown. The coastal landscapes of Hokkaido serve as the backdrop for his profoundly dark and impressionistic photographs of unsettling flocks of crows. The work has been interpreted as a disturbing allegory for postwar Japan.

- Distributor's statement