BUTOH M U S E ABE FRAJNDLICH
BUTOH MUSE ABE FRAJNDLICH
BUTOH M U S E ABE FRAJNDLICH
BUTOH M U S E Photographs ABE FRAJNDLICH Interpreter MINAMI AZU
Afterword to Butoh Muse Ferocious. Erotic. Absurd. Alarming. People struggle to find the words to describe what Butoh is all about.
This book is about the best days that you and I spent together. I met you, and it was really splendid to have shared all these amazing places. The impromptu dance is the daily life expressed by the dancer. Your photographs give visual language to this dance. I understand and live Butoh. Your photography is always beyond Eros. My dance is always beyond Eros. I think that both Mishima and Hijikata live in these pictures. All the places we worked are full of the mysterious. In these images I have encountered your passion. Minami Azu Tokyo 9/18/2011
My first encounter with Butoh, was through the work of Eikoh Hosoe, the great Japanese photographer who did a book called Kamaitachi, in the late sixties. When I arrived at Minor White’s home in 1970, both Kamaitachi and another book called Barakei, or Killed by Roses, were in Minor’s library. Something must have been sparked deep within me from seeing and living with those works, and experiencing the amazing collaboration between Hosoe and the Butoh dancer, Tatsumi Hijikata, as well as his images of the novelist Yukio Mishima. Learning about Butoh is like trying to discover whether the wind or the flag is moving. One writer said, “Butoh seems to fly away from itself, resisting definition or explanation, yet profoundly transforming those who encounter it.” Butoh grew out of a performance in Japan, in 1959, by Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno. Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still raw. The performance sent shock waves throughout traditional Japanese society because of its sexuality, violence and zeal. A new art form of Japanese dance was born. In the years 1972-74, while still in Cleveland, Ohio, I lived and worked with my first muse, Rosebud Conway, who was an inspired actress, mime and dancer. The more than 3600 images we generated for this particular series, was edited and sequenced by Minor White and was published as my first book Figments, in 1975.
Fast forward to late December 12, 2008 to New York City, where I had been living and working since 1984. That evening, while I was headed home through Union Square Station on 14th street, I was stopped in my tracks by a young white-face-and-body painted Japanese performance artist named Minami Azu, who was not even panhandling, but only performing her Butoh dance for a scurrying American audience rushing by to catch the next train. She was wearing a scarlet red kimono. I couldn’t help but think of those challenging photographs I had seen so many years ago by Hosoe of Tatsumi Hijikata. Hijikata, in those images, clearly haunted me. I felt his ghost had come to life in this amazingly talented street dancer who was so visually intense in her bearing. She evoked the seriousness of someone classically trained, who also had a playful quality of spontaneous curiosity. From the little I knew about traditional Butoh, I could see, in that first brief encounter, that she was the genuine article. After making a few exposures with a digital camera, and exchanging a few words in my non-communicative Japanese, and her almost incomprehensible English, I gave her my email address and tried to convey the sense that if she sent me an email, I would send her some of the images. After sending the pictures and getting what I assumed to be a positive response, I traveled to Japan in late 2009 to photograph Nobuyoshi Araki and Kishin Shinoyama for my Penelope’s Hungry Eyes book, and had a couple of very productive photo sessions with Minami. In those sessions I felt two powerful echoes reverberating inside of me. One, of Hosoe’s visionary work and the other from the work Rosebud and I had explored so many years before.
In the Spring and Fall of 2010 Minami came to New York for two weeks each time, where we had daily extensive photo sessions and where she performed her Butoh dance, once in Brooklyn to the music of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, and once in Manhattan, where she improvised and accompanied herself to her own atonal and very far out music. In the summer of 2011 we again met in Venice, Italy, where we worked for a week, and then continued on to a photography workshop in Tuscany, where Minami became the subject for the students that I was teaching, and where she also did a performance al fresco in Castelfranco di Sopra. We then went on to Rome, where we spent another week shooting every day.
abe frajndlich Born May 28, 1946, Frankfurt a/M, Germany Resides in New York City, NY
education BA, Northwestern University, Evanston, Il. Engl. Lit., 1968 MA, Northwestern University, Evanston, Il. Engl. Lit., 1970 Three-year residency with Minor White, Chairman of MIT Depart- ment of Photography 1964-1976, Arlington Hts., Mass., 1970-71, 1975-76 Study and work with Nathan Lyons, Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, 1974-75
Cleveland, Ohio 05/28/74
This set of images, tentatively titled Butoh Muse is being done almost 40 years after that initial photographic introduction to Butoh and my subsequent work with Rosebud. These images, for me, have the feel of time travel. They are consciously a revisiting of my creative past and the early work that was my entree into the all-absorbing world of photography.
present position
One of the great Butoh pioneers said this about his art, which might also apply to this set of photographs: NYC, Union Square 12/12/08
The more people try to understand Butoh, the less they understand. But that doesn’t matter. There are things like the stars, the moon, which you can’t reach. Nothing is so beautiful, so marvelous, as the intangible, and the incomprehensible. – Min Tanaka
Abe Frajndlich NYC 9/20/2011
With profound gratitude and respect to Jim Dine, Frieda Kahlo, Rene Magritte, Henri Matisse, Joao Miro, Piet Mondrian, Mother Nature, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rouseau, Father Time, Andy Warhol and the others artists, known and unknown whose works inspired Minami and I.
Freelance art, magazine and commercial photographer. Has worked for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Life, Art News, London Sunday Times, London Observer, N. Y. Times Magazine and many oth- ers in the U.S. and Europe. Currently working on Butoh Muse, with Japanese dancer, Minami Azu, and Frajndlich Fotographs, covering the early portfolios and the first twenty years.
selected solo exhibitions
Natalia Laue Gallery, Frankfurt, Frankfurt /New York 45 Photos, 2009 Jewish Museum, Frankfurt, Portraits, 101 Photos, 1970-2003 Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, 2002 Reygers Gallery, Munich, 2002, 2001 GSI Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio, 2000 FotoForum International, Frankfurt, 1999 Infocus Gallery am Dom, Köln, Germany 1998 Fotogalerie Kulturamt Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany, 1997 FotoForum Frankfurt, Germany, 1997 Native Indian Museums-Travelling Show 1995-96 Leica Gallery, New York City, 1994 Thread Waxing Space, NYC, 1993 University of Delaware Museum of Art, 1993 Museum Ludwig, Köln, 1990 Dayton Art Institute, Experiencenter Gallery, Dayton, O., 1983 Zenith Gallery, Pittsburgh, Penn., 1983 Akron Museum of Art, Akron, Ohio, 1982 Bonfoey Gallery, Cleveland, Ohio, 1981 The Photography Place, Philadelphia, Penn., 1979 Image Co-Op, Montpelier, Vermont, 1978 SohoPhoto Gallery, New York, N.Y., 1977 Musee Nicephore Niepce, Chalon-sur-Saone, France, 1977
Gallery of Photographic Arts, North Olmsted, Ohio, 1976 United States Senate, Washington, D.C., 1974 selected group exhibitions American Portraits, InFocus Gallery, Köln, 15 photos, 2011 Akte/Nudes, Galerie Tammen, Berlin, 25 photos, 2010 Fascination with the Body, Infocus Gallery, with Alvin Booth, 2007 22 photos Eyes of Time, Galerie Tammen, Berlin, 35 photos, 2006 Gifts to the Nation, National Portrait Galllery, Wash.D.C., 2006, 4 photos Esthetic of the Erotic IV, Leipzig Museum of Photography, 2005 Fifteen Years, Fifteen Photographers, inFocus Gallery, Köln, 2005 Photography from Private Collections, Foto, Forum International, Frankfurt, 2005 Exposed, Nudes of the 20th Century, Heilbronn Museum, with Weston, Brandt, Man Ray, Gibson, 2004, 2 photographs Nudes, inFocus Gallery, Köln, 2004, 2 photos Scapes: City & Land, Butler Institute of American Art, Trumbull, with Simona Frajndlich, 51 photographs Before, During and After 9/11, Dead Horse Gallery, Lakewood, Ohio, 2002, 20 photos
Portrait of the Art World, A Century of ARTnews Photos starting at the NY Historical Society, and travelling to four venues through 2004, 3 photos Princeton Art Museum, Peter Bunnell Exhibition, 2002, 2 photographs Art Bridge: New York-Cologne-New York, Edward Carter Gallery, NYC, 2001, 12 photos World Wildlife Fund Portfolio Exhibition, Der Hague, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Istanbul, 2000/ 2001, with 25 other international photographers Documentation/Manipulation in 20th Century Photography, curated by David Ebitz, Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Fla., 1999, 20 photographs Photographic Portraits of Artists since 1945, curated by Michael Kohler, Museum Bad Arolsen, 1999, Stadtmuseum Hofheim am Taunus, 3/99 to 5/00. Eight portraits of Cindy Sherman, four portraits of Gilbert & George Master Photographs from the Permanent Collection, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996, 1 photograph + inclusive catalogue, 15 photographs Museum Molkau, Leipzig, Germany, 1998 Leica Gallery, Two Person with Ralph Gibson, 1996 Thinking Print, Books to Billboards, 1980-95, MoMA, NYC, 1996, 9 photos as part of a Portfolio 500 Capp St. with David Ireland,text by John Ashberry The Essential Art: 140 Years of American Photography from the Ansel and Virginia Adams Col- lection, University ofArizona,
Center for Creative Photography traveling show, 1992, 1 photo Les Conserves de Nicephore, exhibition and catalog of permanent collection of Musee Nicephore Niepce, Chalon-sur-Saone, France, 10 photographs, 1992 May Show, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1986, 1982, 1981, 1979, 1977, 1974, 1973 Inside Self someone else, Dayton Art Institute, with Eleanor Antin, Robert Arneson, Luis Azaceta, Jay Bolotin, Lynn Hershman, William Wiley, 1984 PhotoCollect, New York City, Two Person with Minor White, 1983 University of Florida Art Department Gallery, Gainesville, Fla., Two-person exhibit with Chris Pekoc, 1982 Second Sight--Infra Red Survey, Carpenter Center, Harvard University, 1981, Show traveled in U.S. & Europe through 1984 New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio, Three-person exhibit, 1981 Personae, Mather Gallery, Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, Ohio, 1980 Summer Show, Daniel Wolf, New York, N.Y., 1980 The Automobile Image, MIT, Cambridge, Ma., 1980 Fotogalerij Paule Pia, Antwerp, Belgium, Two-person exhibit with Andre Kertesz, 1978 Focus Gallery, San Francisco, Two-person exhibit, 1978 New Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio,
Two-person exhibit, 1977 Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass., 1976 Gallery of Photographic Arts, North Olmsted, Ohio, Two-person exhibit with Ansel Adams, 1977 G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Beverly Hills, Cal., 1976 MIT, Cambridge, Mass., Two-person exhibit, 1976 Celebrations, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.,1974 Children: 1843-1973, Exchange National Bank, Chicago, 1973
selected collections
Akron Museum of Art, Akron, Ohio Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, France Butler Institute American Art, Youngstown, O. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio George Eastman House, Rochester, New York Jewish Museum, Frankfurt, Germany Ludwig Museum, Köln, Germany M.I.T. Cambridge, Mass. Musee Nicephore Niepce, International Museum of Photography, Chalon-sur-Saone. Museum of Modern Art, New York City Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, Cal. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. New Mexico Museum Fine Arts, SantaFe, NM
Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, N.J. John and Mabel Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, Cal. Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida University of Arizona, Tempe, Center of Creative Photography Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York Whitney Museum of Art, NYC
Francine & Benson Piloff, Cleveland & Raleigh, N. Carolina Hans-Georg & Bernadette Pospischil, Frankfurt, Progressive Corp., Cleveland, Ohio and Albany, NY James Rosenquist, NYC Don Sanders, Houston, Texas Shearman & Sterling, Frankfurt, Germany Lothar Schirmer, Munich Standard Oil Corp., Cleveland Target Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota Jürgen Tesch, Berlin and Munich Michael Trapp, Frankfurt
selected corporate & private collections
monographs
Henry Adams, Cleveland Bank One, Chicago, Illinois Tom & Katherine Ball, Cleveland Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland Peter Bunnell, Princeton, N.J. AGA Burdox, Stockholm, Sweden Anita & Toby Cosgrove, Cleveland Nancy Dickenson, Santa Fe, New Mexico Harry Drake, Minneapolis, Minn Milton Esterow, NYC Agnes Gund, NYC Eikoh Hosoe, Tokyo Huntington Bank, Columbus, Ohio Bill Jacklin, Newport, R.I. Kopperman & Wolf, Cleveland Peter Lewis, NYC, Miami and Cleveland Gilbert Lloyd, London Herbert Locher, Shanghai & Köln McKinsey & Company, Cleveland Ohio Savings, Cleveland
Penope’s Hungry Eyes; Portraits of Photographers Schirmer-Mosel Verlag, Munich, 2011,188 pages,105 photographs, in English and German Abe Frajndlich Portraits, Prestel Publishing, Munich, London, New York, 2000, 83 photos Eros Eterna, Unschau Braus, Heideberg, Germany, 1999, 115 photos Masters of Light, Catalog to exhibition at Museum Ludwig, 1990, 54 photos Lives I’ve Never Lived: A Portrait of Minor White, ARC Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 1983, 83 photographs Cleveland Infra Red, Publix Imprints, Cleveland, Ohio, 1981, 83 photos Figments, ARC Press, Boston, 1975, 58 photos
portfolios 500 CAPP, Collaboration with David Ireland, John Ashberry, and Gunner Kaldewey, Kaldewey Press, Edition 46, 1995 Glove, Collaboration with painter, Chris Pekoc, 12 photographs, ARC Press, Edition 50, 1982 Homage to Yukio Mishima, Introduction by Eikoh Hosoe, 12 photographs, ARC Press, Edition 35, 1980 Entropic Freeze, Introductory quote from Nathaniel West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, ARC Press, Edition 35, 1980 Cleveland Infra Red, Introduction by Peter Lewis, 12 photographs, ARC Press, Edition of 60, 1980 Lives I’ve Never Lived: A Portrait of Minor White, Intro by Douglas Neil Prudden, 12 photos, Cleveland, Ohio, Edition 50, 1979 Private Figments, Intro by D. N. Prudden,12 photos, Boston, Mass., edition of 25, 1975
WORKSHOPS AND TEACHING
Abe Frajndlich has lectured and taught photography workshops in the U.S., Germany and Italy on Portraiture, The City, and The Nude, and the Self-Portrait for a number of years.
Abe Frajndlich 30 East 20th St. 6th Floor NYC, NY 10003 212 995 8648 abe@abefoto.com www.abefoto.com
Photographs by Abe Frajndlich Š2011 Abe Frajndlich All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic or mechanical (including photocopy, recording, internet posting. or any other information storage and retrieval system) without prior written permission from the photographer/author. Abe Frajndlich abe@abefoto.com Design by Natallie Neomi Isser www.natalieneomi.de With special thanks to Tom Ball Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Frajndlich, Abe Butoh Muse