YUGEN Gallery will hold a solo exhibition by photographer Atsushi Hiratsuka titled “Your Rubber [could be your lover…]” from Saturday, February 4th to Thursday, February 9th, 2023.

Photos are like improvisational theater

Atsushi Hiratsuka was born in Tokyo in 1982 and is a photographer active mainly in fashion and advertising. Raised in a creative environment with his father Shigeo Hiratsuka, an illustrator and graphic designer who worked on book covers for Yoshio Kataoka and Yasuo Tanaka.

Aspiring to be an actor, Hiratsuka went to London to study theater after graduating from high school. While studying method acting during his four-year stay in England, he appeared on stage and in short films. The movie I appeared in at that time was selected for the Venice International Film Festival, and I experienced the red carpet "while in the corner", and after returning to Japan, I also experienced helping Kabuki actors. This experience in the world of acting forms the core of Hiratsuka's photography.

Around the time when he started his career as an actor in earnest, he started working part-time as an exclusive cameraman at an amusement park for the reason that he was offered the role of a cameraman as part of his hobby. As I got a digital camera and helped my father's acquaintance photographer, I became attracted to the charm of expression different from acting.

A long time ago, the accumulation of fragments of memories, such as the photo shoots that his father took him to, the photo albums he looked at at home, and the Mario Testino photo exhibition he saw in London, sparked a photographic fantasy in Hiratsuka, and he became a photographer at the age of 31. decided to move to After studying under Seiichi Nakajima, Mikiyuki Kobayashi, and Jimmy Ming Shun, he became independent. Focusing on fashion, portraiture, and advertising, he is active not only in Japan but also in the world.

fetishism as fantasy

Hiratsuka says that filming is like an improvisational play. The theater method, especially the lighting derived from Kabuki, which he experienced up close, can be said to be his personality.

In Kabuki, the hanamichi is bad, and you can get a sense of the story from there. And there is an object of worship in the upper hand. This rule of stage expression had a great influence on Hiratsuka's cinematography. This is how Hiratsuka explores fetishism. It captures the harmony of the premonition of uneasiness and worship.

"Fetishism has a sexual and perverted image, but it's something that everyone secretly carries and it's nothing to be ashamed of. The world should be more open and freer. There are new changes in fetishism. Good. If you accept it and touch it, the world will change."

Originally, fetishism meant the worship of an inanimate object by a community or individual. What is defined as ``fetishism'' or ``fetishism'' is mainly sexual - appealing to physicality, such as admiring specific body parts and images of wearing leather or rubber straitjacket. I'm here. But this cult also applies to collectibles like toys, sneakers, knives, records, and the list goes on.

Each of them has their own set of values, separated from the social context, and begins their individual “life” within their own individual order of experience, sensibility, and memory. It is a fantasy that seeks a genuine escape from the unbearable reality and finds a true place for yourself in daily life that feels hard to live and lacks reality. Fetishism can be said to be a wish to restore humanity to those of us who are likely to be cramped and succumbed in society.

Monochrome that captures an alluring luster

Bondage that symbolizes sexual bondage and captive relationships by wearing shiny clothes such as leather, latex, and PVC. Hiratsuka came across bondage works from the world-famous latex brand <Kurage> and was fascinated by the "bewitching luster" unique to latex materials. Then, with a Leica camera that excels in black expression, the monochrome expression that I pursue is "Your rubber [could be your lover...]". In this exhibition, 15 black-and-white prints, including previously unpublished works, will be displayed, depicting the bodies of women in bondage fashion.

“When I was a child, I had bondage fashion photobooks and dolls among the design materials I had at home, and when I saw them, I thought they were beautiful. And there is something about it that makes me feel like death.

Hiratsuka says that while he was fascinated by the worldview of fetishism, there was a time when he felt that his tastes were impure, unable to reveal his tastes to others. And it was theater and photography that liberated that sexuality as the emergence of one's own authentic mind.

The method theater that I studied in England and the Rocky Horror Show that I watched at the time seemed strange to Japanese people, but it was a world of free expression. On the other hand, Hiratsuka, who entered the world of Kabuki as a kabuki actor's dressing room assistant, has experienced first-hand the weight of tradition, such as the etiquette and the work of craftsmen who support the stage, as well as the actors who put their nerves into the whole body and face the play. increase.

Respect and love each individual life

Hiratsuka captures bondage through cross-cultural synchronicity and contrast. In terms of the physicality of bondage, the work is completed in a frame that feels smooth and lustrous when touched with the palm of the hand, and you can appreciate it while touching it. You will fall into the illusion that you are touching the subject, and the possibilities of photographic expression as a tactile medium will open up.

“I hope that Your Rubber, a work that you can enjoy with all five senses as if you were gently touching a woman, will become Your lover.”

Touch the body covered with latex rubber with your eyes and feel the immersive feeling of watching with your hands. The luster that floats there is the brilliance of the individual's life, and we can confirm that fetishism is genuine compassion for human beings.