Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/shikanosuke-yagaki-14410" aria-label="More by Shikanosuke Yagaki" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Shikanosuke Yagaki</a>
Clock
Presented by Jacqui Brantjes and Daniel Pittack 2010
clock
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
light
natural phenomena
objects
photographic
scientific and measuring
shadow
<p>Shikanosuke Yagaki was an active member of many of the amateur photography clubs flourishing in Japan in the 1930s, including the Sanwa Bank Photo Club, the Karashishi-kai Photo Group, and the Kyoto Leica Club and his work was widely exhibited. Despite a lack of professional training, Yagaki developed a sophisticated style which combined the influence of European modernism with typical Japanese subjects. His work shows a great understanding of the camera’s potential, playing with movement, perspective, light and shadow.</p><p><em>Gallery label, June 2011</em></p>
paper print photograph gelatin silver
18 February 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
18 February 2011 – 15 April 2012
2012-04-15
2011-02-18
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2011-02-18
Japanese Photography
Collection based display
14 October 2014 – 10 May 2015
2015-05-10
14 October 2014 – 10 May 2015
2015-05-10
2014-10-14
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
2014-10-14
The Modern Lens: International Photography and the Tate Collection
Exhibition
14 February 2022
14 February 2022
2022-02-14
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2022-02-14
Decentring the Bauhaus
Collection based display
Untitled (Clock)
support & image: 290 × 218 mm
Presented by Jacqui Brantjes and Daniel Pittack 2010
<div class="text">
<p>
<i>Untitled</i> <i>(Clock)</i> is a black and white gelatin silver print on paper, set within a window mount and framed. The image has a portrait orientation and shows a small metal clock resting on a lined surface in front of a wall. Light illuminates the otherwise dark room in a diagonal shaft that is brightest in the lower left foreground of the image. The shadows of window bars divide this shaft into further diagonals as it falls across the ribbed surface, which is disturbed by a translucent reflection of sunlight emanating from the clock’s glass face. This play of light lends the image a geometric quality in which the diagonals, circles and the lines of the surface intersect. The hands of the clock indicate a time of 9.50, and given the prominence of daylight in the image it can be assumed that the photograph was taken in the morning.</p>
<p>
<i>Untitled</i> <i>(Clock)</i> was created between 1930 and 1939 by amateur Japanese photographer Shikanosuke Yagaki. Interest in photography surged in Japan in the wake of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. At this time, newspapers had become inexpensive and easy to circulate, and the documentary photographs of the disaster contained within the pages of the press increased the status of the photographic medium. As Tokyo was rebuilt, photographers continued to document the emergence of the modern city and the consequences of its refashioning in concrete, glass and steel. This modern Japanese photography movement became known as Shinko Shashin and magazines such as <i>Japan Photographic Annual</i> and <i>Asahi Camera</i>, launched in 1925 and 1926 respectively, provided a platform for the work of its members. Many photographic clubs also emerged at this time, linked by the All Japan Association of Photographic Societies, which enabled exhibitions of its members’ work. Yagaki was an active member of three of these groups throughout the 1930s: the Sanwa Bank Photo Club, the Karashishi-kai Photo Group and the Kyoto Leica Club.</p>
<p>A further consequence of the increased appetite for photography in Japan was that exhibitions of work by European modernist and surrealist photographers were imported and toured the country, including a 1929 Werkbund exhibition of German photographs called <i>Film und Foto</i> which featured the work of artists from the Bauhaus such as Laszlo Maholy-Nagy, Marianne Brandt and T. Lux Feininger. The influence of these European photographers can be observed in the images created by their Japanese counterparts, including those of Yagaki. His photographs, which are also represented in the Tate collection by works such as<i> Untitled (Street lamp and shadow) </i>1930–9 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/yagaki-untitled-street-lamp-and-shadow-p13148" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13148</span></a>) and <i>Untitled (Jazz) </i>1930–9 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/yagaki-jazz-p13150" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P13150</span></a>), employ an unusual vantage point and focus on uncovering the unexpected beauty that can be found in the everyday. Yagaki’s work also embodies the Japanese idea of ‘wabi-sabi’, a philosophy that embraces the transient and the imperfect to capture a fleeting beauty. The convergence of these two influences is revealed in Yagaki’s sensitivity to the play of light, which enabled him to expand the viewer’s perspective by capturing the momentary shadows and reflections of his urban surroundings.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Ryuichi Kaneko, <i>Rhapsody of Modern Tokyo</i>, exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo 1993.<br/>Gennifer Weisenfeld, <i>Visual Cultures of Japanese Imperialism</i>, Durham, North Carolina 2001.<br/>Gennifer Weisenfeld, <i>Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923</i>, Oakland 2012.</p>
<p>Phoebe Roberts<br/>May 2016</p>
<p>
<i>Supported by Christie’s.</i>
</p>
</div>

Summary
2017-08-10T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Shikanosuke Yagaki was an active member of many of the amateur photography clubs flourishing in Japan in the 1930s, including the Sanwa Bank Photo Club, the Karashishi-kai Photo Group, and the Kyoto Leica Club and his work was widely exhibited. Despite a lack of professional training, Yagaki developed a sophisticated style which combined the influence of European modernism with typical Japanese subjects. His work shows a great understanding of the camera’s potential, playing with movement, perspective, light and shadow.</p>

Display caption
2011-06-06T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
clock emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities light natural phenomena objects photographic scientific and measuring shadow