In her photos, Ishiuchi Miyako focuses on the dynamics, tensions of postwar Japan

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"Yokosuka Story No. 98," a 1976-1977 Gelatin silver print by Ishiuchi Miyako, is part of the "Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows" show at the Getty Center. (Ishiuchi Miyako / The J. Paul Getty Museum)


Leah Ollman
There are two Ishiuchi Miyakos. One who followed a relatively conventional path for a Japanese woman of her generation (born 1916) — marriage, children, some work outside the home to help support her family. The other Ishiuchi, her daughter, made herself into something of an appropriation and reinvention of the first.

Born in 1947, the year of Japan's "peace constitution," Fujikura Yoko took up photography in 1975. She assumed her mother's maiden name as her professional identity, superimposing an autonomous, self-determined postwar life upon one prescribed by tradition.

Ishiuchi gained recognition immediately for her work, earning honors extremely rare for a woman in Japan's then-overwhelmingly male photographic sphere. In 1979, she was included in the exhibition "Japan: A Self-Portrait" at the International Center of Photography in New York, the lone woman among 18 men. In 2005, she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale. Now, the Getty Museum presents her first major show in the U.S., the deeply affecting "Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows."


"Apartment #55," a 1977-1978 Gelatin silver print by Ishiuchi Miyako, is part of the "Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows" show at the Getty Center.



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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-getty-postwar-photos-20151025-story.html