Yamazaki Hiroshi
Heliography

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Artist Yamazaki Hiroshi(Japanese, born 1946)Japanese, born 1946

CultureJapanese

Titles

Heliography

Date1978

Place depictedJapan

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 8 1/4 × 12 1/8 in. (21 × 30.8 cm)
Sheet: 10 15/16 × 13 15/16 in. (27.8 × 35.4 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Celia and Jay Munisteri

Object number2014.726

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionHiroshi Yamazaki focuses on the camera as an apparatus in both his photography and filmmaking. In Heliography, he traces the path of the sun over a calm, nondescript sea through an extended exposure to analyze the camera’s function in capturing a vision possible only with the technology of photography. The title Heliography, which references one of the first photographic processes invented by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, also reveals Yamazaki’s strong interest in the history of camera mechanics. He used a special filter that reduced the light to four-hundredths of its strength in order to photograph the shifting sun over a significant period of time, indicated by the shining trace of light in the sky and the intensity of the reflection on the water. The narrowly defined subject matter and minimal visual language generate a beautifully rigorous composition that verges on abstraction. These photographs about light and time push the medium to new conceptual limits.
ProvenanceArtist, Tokyo, Japan, 1970s; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 2014
Exhibition History“For A New World to Come: Experiments in Japanese Art and Photography, 1968-1979 Japan,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 8–July 12, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

no inscriptions or marks

not signed

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