JTF (just the facts): Published in 2024 by roshin books (here). Hardcover (27 x 22.5 cm), 80 pages, with 62 black-and-white photographs. Includes an essay by Takahashi Shigemi (in Japanese and English). Design by Katsuya Kato. In an edition of 1000 copies. (Cover and spread shots below.)
Solitude Standing is also available in a special edition (here). This version includes a book in a slipcase, and comes with a fiber-based silver gelatin print made from an original negative film (8 x 10 inches). In an edition of 30 copies.
Comments/Context: For the past ten years, the Tokyo-based publishing house roshin books has been releasing titles by both emerging and well established Japanese photographers, including the work of Masahisa Fukase (focusing on his obsessions with cats, shared by the publisher Atsushi Saito), Yukichi Watabe, and Masakazu Murakami, to name just a few. Its most recent title features the work of Ichiro Kojima, marking the anniversary of what would have been his 100th birthday. Born in 1924 in the Aomori Prefecture of Japan, Kojima died at the age of 39, yet his photographic legacy documenting his region and its people remains an important contribution to Japanese photography.
In July 1944, the 19-year-old Kojima was drafted and sent to China, where he spent a year in battle; many members of his regiment died in combat or from disease. Returning to a devastated Aomori as a demobilized soldier the following year, Kojima found his hometown reduced to ashes. He started to pursue photography seriously in the mid 1950s while working in his family’s camera store, and he spent time in the Tsugari region documenting farming and fishing villages through the four seasons. His photographs drew the interest of photographer and editor Yonosuke Natori, who helped to organize Kojima’s first solo exhibition “Tsugaru”, in Ginza, Tokyo, in 1958.
With Natori’s encouragement, Kojima moved to Tokyo in 1961 with hopes of advancing his photographic career, and later that year, he published his series “The Rough Seas of Shimokita”, winning Camera Geijutsu Magazine’s Newcomer Award, and increasing expectations for his future work. However, his second exhibition of photographs he took in Tokyo wasn’t as successful. He struggled to find inspiration there, and so Kojima decided to move to Hokkaido and capture the change of seasons there. He moved in the winter of 1963, but the project was slow going, and the harsh weather was not good for his health. He returned home to Aomori and died suddenly in July of 1964.
Kojima’s work was mostly forgotten after his death, but was brought back into the spotlight with the retrospective “Ichiro Kojima: Northern Photographer” at the Aomori Museum of Art in 2009. During his short life, Kojima released his first, and ultimately his last photobook Tsugaru: Poetry, Writings, Photography (1963). It was reprinted in 2014, coinciding with the exhibition “Ichiro Kojima: To the North, From the North” at Izu Photo Museum, marking ninety years since his birth, and fifty since his death. Solitude Standing marks Kojima’s 100th birthday (and ten years since the last exhibition of his work), and offers a new edit of the series (including unpublished images), evoking a sense of solitude.
As a photobook, Solitude Standing immediately stands out. Kojima’s photograph of four figures wrapped in wool capes walking away along a snowy path appears with beautiful silver foil on black cloth cover, offering a striking introduction. The artist’s name and the title are placed in silver on the spine. The images are also beautifully printed full bleed on the endpapers. Inside, the photographs slightly vary in their size and placement, creating a dynamic visual flow, and photographs are sometimes placed across the spreads. The page numbers appear in a small font on the edge of the pages, but there are no captions or other texts inside the book. A thin booklet “Evening Sun in Tokyo” contains photographs Kojima shot in Tokyo along with a short essay by Takahashi Shigemi, curator from the Aomori Museum of Art.
The Tsugaru Peninsula was once considered one of the main trade hubs of Japan, but the Second World War had devastating effects on the region – over ninety percent was destroyed by American bombers, forcing people to leave. Kojima’s photographs shot in 1946 offer a unique portrait of Aomori. His black-and-white photos of snowy landscapes and turbulent skies are filled with dark moods and atmosphere. Solitude Standing is deeply melancholic.
The book opens with various dark snowy landscapes, followed by an image of people walking along the water as the waves foam under the harsh winds. Snow and sky dominate Kojima’s images, and silhouettes of people, often rather small and shot from the back, add to the feeling of loneliness and desolation. These scenes of lone figures or small groups of people walking are particularly striking. A photograph crossing the gutter with a thin vertical white border on the left shows houses covered in snow while a blustery snow-drifted field fills most of the foreground of the frame.
There are many elegant pairings in the book, emphasizing the power of Kojima’s work. In one pairing, a photo of a man pulling a sledge through a snowy village is matched by a shot of two people with wool capes over their shoulders walking separately as spots of melting show dot the road. In another, a white hill is mostly visible because of the skyline that makes its contours visible, and the nearby picture is completely white with a tiny silhouette wrapped in a coat appearing in the lower left corner. A third notable pairing brings together an image where grass takes up most of the frame and a small silhouette of a horse appears near the top, while in the image on the opposite side, the foggy sky takes up most of the space and the horizon line runs through the lower part of the frame.
Kojima’s series brings to mind the work of other Japanese photographers who have documented rural areas, especially in the years after the war. Hiroshi Hamaya made gripping photos in several small villages in Niigata Prefecture, focusing on the traditional customs and the austere climate of the region. Many were included in his photobook Snow Land (1956). And Shigeichi Nagano travelled all around Japan documenting the different lives in the diverse environments.
A dramatic overly dark photograph of sunlight coming through the clouds over the restless sea closes the book, leaving us with a uneasy mood. The tactile physicality of this book creates a richly sensuous experience, and Solitude Standing definitely stands out as a thoughtful and beautifully produced photobook. It brings a fresh interpretation to Kojima’s melancholy journey, introducing his photography to a new audience, but also refreshing his place in the canon of 20th century Japanese photography.
Collector’s POV: The estate of Ichiro Kojima does not appear to have consistent gallery representation at this time, with most if not all of his original prints being housed in the Aomori Museum of Art (here).
