Shomei Tomatsu

First exhibition in Barcelona of the Japanese photographer Shomei Tomatsu (Nagoya, Aichi, 1930-Naha, Okinawa, 2012), whose work shows the key events in the history of Japan after the Second World War. Shomei Tomatsu learned photography self-taught while studying economics at university. He created the influential agency of photographers VIVO, along with Ikko Narahara, Eikoh Hosoe, Akira Tanno, Kikuji Kawada and Akira Sato; and was the first Japanese artist to present an individual exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum in New York.

This exhibition consists of 180 photographs, organized into several thematic sections representing six decades of Japanese history:

• The post-war Japan, with photographs of the damage caused by the war and the consequences of floods.
• The American occupation, on the influence in Japan of the American militarization.
• The effects of the bomb in Nagasaki, with portraits of some victims, to which Shomei Tomatsu always requested his consent to make known to the world the suffering they still suffered. In addition, he also captured the effects of the bombardment by means of some everyday objects (a clock, a bottle, a shirt).
• In the experience of Eros and the irruption of the rebels, the photographer shows the impact of the Japanese economic boom after the 1960s.
• From 1980 Tomatsu began to explore the traditional roots of his country and the traditional culture of temples and religious festivals (Kyoto series). At the same time, he showed his interest in nature and the objects that surround it in his closest environment.
• In 1986, due to a coronary disease and after a long period of convalescence, he began to observe the accumulated waste in the black sand of the beach of Chiba prefecture. The artificial and the natural coexist in the strange photographs that make up the Plastics series (1988-1989).
• The exhibition ends with the Modern Japan series, which shows the less positive side of the transformation that his country had in the 1960s (contamination of soil or smoke from petrochemical complexes).

The Shomei Tomatsu exhibition, produced by Fundación MAPFRE, is made up of exceptional loans from the legacy of Shomei Tomatsu - INTERFACE, as well as others from the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; the Per Amor a l'Art Collection, Valencia; and Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film, Tokyo.