Fukase was born in Hokkaido, in 1934 (he passed away in 2012). He graduated from the Department of Photography, College of Art at Nihon University in 1956. Fukase began working for the Dai-Ichi advertising agency. Thereafter he began to build his reputation through a series of exhibitions, including a solo show with an industrial theme entitled Sky over an Oil Refinery in 1960, and another solo show featuring a series of slaughterhouses entitled Kill the Pigs in 1961. The latter - called by critics “a personal and violent document” - gave Fukase his first exposure in a photography magazine (Photo Art). Throughout the 1960s, Fukase received regular attention in such journals such as Camera Mainichi and Asahi Journal. In 1964 Fukase married Wanibe Yoko, who was his central subject during their twelve-year marriage and continued to affect his art thereafter. In 1968 he became a freelance photographer, following brief stints at the Nippon Design Center and Kawade Shobo Shinsha Publishers. With Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu, in 1974, he set up a photographic school, The Workshop, which propagated the grainy, raw style they pioneered. That same year, his work was included in “New Japanese Photography,” a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fukase worked almost exclusively in series, some of which came about over the course of several decades. The works combine to form a remarkable visual biography of one of the most original photographers of his time. Fukase incorporated his own life experiences of loss, love, loneliness and depression into his work in a surprisingly playful manner.
Fukase’s work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Oxford Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK; Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, France and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. His work is held in major collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; San Francisco vulnerability, San Francisco, USA; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA. He is also the winner of prizes such as the 2nd Ina Nobuo Award in 1976 for his exhibition “Karasu” as well as the Special Award at the 8th Higashikawa Photography Awards in 1992.
Karasu (Ravens) was made between 1976 and 1982 after his wife had divorced him. The visual narrative of the series revolves around the anthropomorphic form of the raven. Dead and alive the birds punctuate the work; lone birds reduced to shadow puppetry against the snow or dislocated flocks that mimic the grain of the photographs themselves. Although interjected with other subjects such as blizzard streaked streets or the fleshy form of a nude masseuse, it is the recurrent presence of the ravens that sets the ominous and cinematic tone of the work.
