a requiem or lament for 'nation of the walking dead'

[Taro Toporific]

ART REVIEW | SHOMEI TOMATSU
Silent Lament for a Japan Still Scarred By the War
NYTimes.com / Oct 25
....The German writer W. G. Sebald titled a novel after the rings of Saturn, which look orderly and elegant from far away but are in reality the detritus of some immense catastrophe - shards from an act of violence that continue to drift endlessly through time.
Mr. Tomatsu's photographs are, in part, a visual equivalent: a requiem or lament for what he perceives as a nation of the walking dead, still damaged by war, animated by the corrupting but magnetic influence of Americanization. ...
....view the slide show of his work...

[Mulboyne]

Christian Science Monitor: Past the ruins of postwar Japan

In the 1950s and '60s, Tomatsu, often working for mass-circulation magazines, redefined photography into a potent blend of reportage, Surrealist theater, and Haiku-like introspection. He has long been recognized as Japan's most important postwar photographer, yet the 260 images on view, in both black and white and color, represent the first major exhibition of his pictures in the United States.

As gallery upon gallery unfolds, the exhibition reveals a photographic artist of astonishing strength. Tomatsu's earliest work documents the period of reconstruction. A 1951 image shows a disabled veteran dazed and uncertain as he walks on the fringe of a rebuilt town, steadying himself with a walking stick and being led by a small girl. The picture stands in stark contrast to American photography of the same era, which sought out moments of heightened visual climax. Here, the drama is inward and metaphoric, almost nonchalantly representing the once-great Japan as a depleted figure utterly dependent on whatever small hand is offered.