Gocho Shigeo
from the series Self and Others

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Images(2)

Artist Gocho Shigeo(Japanese, 1946–1983)Japanese, 1946–1983

CultureJapanese

Titles

from the series Self and Others

Date1975–1977, printed 1992

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 3 15/16 × 5 7/8 in. (10 × 15 cm)
Sheet: 7 15/16 × 10 in. (20.2 × 25.4 cm)
Frame (outer) (ANW EXHIBITION FRAME): 11 5/8 × 14 5/8 × 1 1/4 in. (29.5 × 37.1 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation and the Mary Kathryn Lynch Kurtz Charitable Lead Trust Fund

Object number2014.692

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionPerhaps due to his thoracic vertebral caries, a degenerative bone disease that stunted his height at four feet, three inches, Shigeo Gochō was highly attuned to the connections and distances that could be captured through photographic portraits. His work, particularly his first photobook, Days (1971), produced in collaboration with Masao Sekiguchi, is associated often with konpora photography due to its focus on mundane scenes from everyday life. However, Gochō expressed an interest in daily life not simply as a way to understand the world changing around him but to understand his own relativity. Taken primarily in the suburbs, the portraits in Self and Others are plainly staged, with most of the subjects centered in the frame at some distance from the camera, facing the photographer. Many of Gochō’s subjects are presented in pairs, as in the work shown here, to underscore the differences between “self” and “other.” Whether photographing friends or strangers, Gochō focused on the connection between him and the subject, a connection that oscillated between comfort and discomfort, familiarity and distrust.
ProvenanceMEM Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, 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.

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