Demonstratively modern: Miwa Yanagi

Contemporary Japanese photography is well represented in the Deutsche Bank Collection. The photographer Miwa Yanagi, whose work will be shown in a one-person exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin starting late January 2004, uses the aesthetic of advertising photography in order to conquer it. An example of classical Japanese martial arts: beating the opponent with his own force. Arno Widmann introduces the artist.

Miwa Yanagi, born 1967 in Kobe, counts among Japan's most important artist photographers. In 1993, after completing her studies in fine arts in Kyoto, she had her first exhibition in Kobe, then in Tokyo in 1995; her works were already shown in Germany in 1996, in Frankfurt's Shirn. One year later she was in New York, and since then she's been represented in many exhibitions worldwide.

One key reason for her success is her perfectionism. All of her photographs have been worked on to the nth degree. She uses the computer as a classical painter uses the glaze to create a smooth, flawless surface – that impression of skin-deep purity we've grown accustomed to in advertising photography. Miwa Yanagi doesn't shrink back from this aesthetic. She obeys it – in order to conquer it. A classical Japanese form of martial arts. Miwa Yanagi wears a black belt in art and beats the opponent with his own force.


Miwa Yanagi: Eternal City I, 1998, Deutsche Bank Collection
©Miwa Yanagi

Miwa Yanagi's photographs preferably depict women. One need only think of the hostesses of Eternal City I from the Deutsche Bank Collection in Tokyo clinging to one another in a futuristic space, or the large series such as Elevator Girls or My Grandmothers. In Miwa Yanagi's photographs, styling and make-up do not play any less of a role than in fashion photographs. The photographs are usually taken indoors – the artist likes to retain control over everything. When they aren't interiors, then the sky has to provide all of its shine to lend her women the necessary light and breadth.


Miwa Yanagi: Elevator Girl House B4
©Miwa Yanagi

Miwa Yanagi implements the same perfectionism in controlling the set as she does in controlling the viewer's eyes. She directs his or her gaze. Almost every one of her photographs has a clear, unequivocal center. This sometimes goes so far that only the main protagonist is in focus (Yoshi in My Grandmothers). This becomes evident when we look at Hiroko, another one of My Grandmothers.

The protagonist, Hiroko, is in the foreground, positioned in front of a large window such that her upper body, her head, and the right side of her eyeglasses clearly stand out. The central motif of the photograph is an open suitcase – something that doesn't usually occur in Miwa Yanagi's work. She never pursues an aesthetic of randomness. When she wants to show something, then she shows it, stages it, even. Miwa Yanagi's photographs are stages that make women into heroines. Even when an old woman is sitting next to an airplane window, looking out, she is sitting there like a queen. She is not smiling. She is not dreaming. She's looking, and she's thinking.