Hairmode

Kaoru Ijima
Hairmode

Photographs: Kaoru Ijima

Text: Iizawa Kohtaro

Publisher: Bijutsu Shuppansha

52 pages

Year: 1994

Comments: Hardcover, 34,5 x 26 cm, b&w and color photographs. In very good condition.

"A specter is haunting Japan - the specter of "Hair Nude." If this term were printed on the cover of books and magazines, such publications would surely sell many thousand copies. A publishing company that is suffering in these lean times wouldn't exactly reject the opportunity to take advantage of the magical draw of such a specter. Of course, thinking about the topic, one notices certain comic as well as sorrowful points to the issue. Regardless of whether or not the "hair" is beautiful and although surely there is infinite variety in "hair" among nudes, this "hair" is magical in the way it provokes such fetishes. However, when considering the entire beautiful yet complicated composition of each nude, this one area cannot be thought of as particularly special. But we Japanese don't even use the actual Japanese word for pubic hair; rather, we indirectly call it "hair." This ambiguousness has persisted throughout the distorted history of our reaction to nude images in photography. Publishers and the authorities constantly battle back and forth on the "hair" issue, maintaining it as the point of reference for work featuring nudes. Personally I am not bothered by "hair" and don't give special consideration to the nuances associated with it. Couldn't the oversized shape of the blurred "hair" in photographs be considered a "Hair Nude" phenomenon itself? lima Kaoru wants to show us lightly and humorously our stiffness with regards to "hair. (...)"

- Excerpt from the book, text by Iizawa Kohtaro