When the Guardian recently ran a glowing review of the monograph Ueda, a collection of previously unpublished photographs by Japanese photography master Shōji Ueda that were discovered after his death, there were just a few copies of the book available on Amazon – the world’s largest global bookstore/marketplace. Those copies were only available through third-party sellers, as the book wasn’t being sold by Amazon directly, and the cheapest was listed at $129.00. Following the Guardian piece, they all sold out quickly, as did the complete first-edition run being sold on the website of publisher Chose Commune. Pre-orders for the second edition, which will drop in February of next year, are currently being taken.
From the series Shiroi Kaze Brilliant Scenes, 1980-81. Courtesy the artist.
In the Guardian piece, critic Sean O’Hagan says of Ueda:
“It is an astonishing book, from the quality of the paper to the strange short story by Toshiyuli Horie, ‘Under the Old Lens God,’ which is an oblique but fitting response to the images…. As a colourist, too, Ueda comes close to Saul Leiter’s painterly vision – there is the same understanding of tone and depth, of things viewed as if through the transforming gauze of the lens. You would be hard pushed to find a more beautiful photography book this year, or one that gives such a sense of an instinctively gifted individual pursuing his own creative journey in a singular and surprising way.”
From the series Genshi Yukan Illusion, 1987-92. Courtesy the artist.
Our media-manipulated need to be part of a movement/feeding-frenzy feeds the hype around everything from big-spectacle films to pop music to whatever is hip in the art world this week. Sometimes real artists benefit from hype and hullabaloo, which is undoubtedly the case with the new Ueda monograph, which was published in October and has slowly built a groundswell of acclaim. (The attention has also sparked a run on older monographs.) Ueda, who died in 2000, deserves as wide an audience as possible for his surreal, poetic vision.
Examples of his work that pre-date the Ueda collection can be found here.
The Youtube clips below are of the Shōji Ueda Museum of Photography, and of the man at work.
