Hitoshi Fugo Japanese, b. 1947

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Hitoshi Fugo’s uniquely dark and abstract vision negotiates existing orders and relationships between his subjects and locations both physically and psychologically.  Fugo doubts the notion that photography captures reality exactly as seen through the photographer’s eye. Instead he believes the photographer only sees the darkness of the closing shutter. Even during that millisecond as the image is frozen into a photograph, the world continues to change.

Hitoshi Fugo studied photography at Nihon University in Tokyo. In 1970 upon graduating he worked for Eiko Hosoe, the internationally known master photographer. In 1973, he became a freelance photographer based in New York and Paris. During the 1970s and 1980s, he traveled extensively and created many series including BLACKOUT, which he first exhibited in Tokyo in 1982 under the title Dark Changes. His other work includes Flying Frying Pan (1974-1994), a black and white series capturing many aspects of the surface of a frying pan, Game Over (1980-1991), a series inspired by the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, On the Circle (2003-2011) and Waterfall Watchers (1994).  In 2017, he exhibited his new project Body and Horizontal Bar (2003-2015) in Tokyo and Fukuoka. Fugo’s work has had international exposure in exhibitions such as Japanese Photography Today (Spain, 1986) and Japanese Contemporary Photography (Germany, 2000). His recent publications include BLACKOUT  (2018, L’Artiere) and WATCHERS (2020, Fugensha).