Small Things in Silence
I first discovered the photographs of Yamamoto Masao on Pinterest. I pinned a few and then moved on. Well, you know how Pinterest works: soon more of his photographs were appearing in my feed. Quickly, I became obsessed with seeking more of them out, and as often happens, this photographer that I'd never heard of seems to be everywhere. This is not surprising - his work is pure poetry and seems to almost come from another realm.
His prints are small, meant to be held in the hand, as objects. When his work is shown, he places it on the wall in an organic collage. His photograph-objects have been dyed, stained with tea, painted on and sometimes are torn or frayed. They depict things like birds catapulting off of blossoming branches, two rabbits on the horizon in the distance facing each other, a bird lifting off and flying from a hand, a man with his arm outstretched - his hand on a tree, a tree growing out of a slab of concrete.
“My photos are so small, sometimes you can’t figure out what you’re looking at.”
I felt I needed to see his images without a backlit screen - a book would be the next best thing to seeing them in person. Of course I was attracted to the title: Small Things in Silence. I've spent hours looking at the photos, holding the book up closely to my eyes, and then leaving it open to this page or that one, on the kitchen table.
The artist writes a short preface to the book in which he says, "When I look back upon my path, I realize that the one consistent motif in my work was my obsession for small things. I feel joy when I discover seemingly insignificant things that may be easily overlooked. I am interested in this awkward feelings - such as when you miss a button hole or are stalled and lost in a disorienting fog. I prefer whispering my messages in a soft voice instead of speaking them out loud. My messages may be so soft as to be mistaken for illusions."
There is a wonderful introduction to the book, also, written by Jacobo Siruela. In it he talks about beauty. He says, "There is nothing more fleeting (or deeper) than this mysterious quality of the universe, so relegated by present-day artistic coteries, perhaps because beauty remains a yearning, a goal never attained." He goes on, "Whatever the official voices of the present age may say, beauty is the central enigma of art and will never disappear."
The photographs are small and intimate, little messages of beauty. Some of them are blurry and murky and others have a dark clarity. I could see wanting to carry one in a pocket as a talisman, until it became creased and worn.
2016
