Edition Hatje Cantz | Hatje Cantz

Izima Kaoru

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002ZoomEdition Gerd HatjeIzima Kaoru341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002ZoomEdition Gerd HatjeIzima Kaoru341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002ZoomEdition Gerd HatjeIzima Kaoru341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002 342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

“The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe. And one is tempted to be of the same opinion when considering Ophelia, Madame Bovary, or Anna Karenina. This concept is also deeply rooted in Far Eastern culture: Buddhism even recommends daily meditation on one’s own death.

The Japanese artist Izima Kaoru (*1954 in Kyoto) lets the most beautiful of the beautiful generate ideas about their own impermanence, about their own death, which he then translates into images. Starting with classic and strict landscape photographs, his highly aesthetic images slowly approach the victims of self-inflicted or external violence—right down to detailed close-ups of their faces—who have experienced death in perfect beauty. His visual sources range from traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts to Pop Art—and the results are always characterized by a bewitching, melancholic beauty and sadness.

Among the blossoming bushes of an overgrown park, Itaya Yuka, a famous Japanese actress, lies on the naked ground. Her red dress stands out among the lilac colored hydrangeas; a couple of fallen petals decorate her throat. In Hanakotoba, the Japanese “language” of plants, the hydrangea is traditionally considered a symbol of pride—has the beauty’s pride doomed her, perhaps? In the wild Garden of Eden, the hydrangea, which, after all, originally comes from Japan, seems as strange and exotic as the beautiful dead woman.

Izima Kaoru
341 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002342 Itaya Yuka wears Comme de Garcons, 2002

Diptych of two C-prints
Sheet size: 40.8 x 50.8 cm
Image size: 32 x 42 cm and 32 x 22 cm
Limited edition of 25 + 5 a.p.,
signed and numbered

available

€ 1,500.00

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About Izima Kaoru

Artist

The Correlated Book

Izima KaoruIzima Kaoru
Landscapes with a Corpse
978-3-7757-2237-7
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Glossary

What is a diasec? How is a sepia print made? More »

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