How do you continually surprise and shock when your work has become so familiar? What can you say with a photograph that hasn't been said before? Will making things bigger make them better? These questions niggle at the back of the mind while visiting Shinoyama Kishin's current show. "The people by Kishin" at Tokyo Opera City Gallery is one person's constantly re-adjusting view of Japan that succeeds in being as confounding as it is at times unexpected.
Kishin has a knack for creating troublesome imagery, cementing the idea of a bon viveur, both unconventional and difficult. The reaction to his photobook "Santa Fe," featuring model-turned-actress Rie Miyazawa, caused problems for his then very young muse, who struggled with the exposure and very public profile of the provocative photographs he produced. Conversely, portraits of Yukio Mishima exploited the self-parodying of Mishima's god-likeness — an exploitation to which Mishima willingly submitted.
Looking back on Kishin's work, such images seem quite traditional and no longer as shocking as they originally were. Aided by a popular culture shaped by his photography, they have been stripped bare of their past allure. It is his less-conventional images that retain the viewers' interest. For example, his gigantic "Sumo" panorama, taken in 1995 (or shino-rama as he calls it) is impressive, though again a little underwhelming, despite dominating one entire gallery wall.