Masanori Hata
“ Black humor or useless word ”
2008Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
Black humor or useless word
They say that art no longer produces beauty, and if we were to say the same kind of thing about photography, we might say that photographs (those taken deliberately by photographers) do not portray the truth.
It’s an absurd thing to say. When you think about it, it seems contradictory, somewhat over simplistic. Just as eras simply repeat new negatives and new positives, so truth changes, and the value of accomplishments changes.
I’m an incompetent person, and this is the only thing I can do, so in some ways I deliberately produce things for the era, while in others I am debauched by it.
This work is a far-fetched conclusion from a simple expression. It has a hangover-like spirit, but in the sense that I aim to portray reality, I use extreme expression to ensure that photographs will continue to be photographs.
By struggling to convey a thing towards the whole, I allow it to be born as a photograph for the first time. In one way this is negative and in another way it is positive, and I believe it represents a theory of love for hope amidst hopelessness.
Masanori Hata, the idiot
Entries form: Monochrome printing paper, Sho-zen-shi, 80 pieces, collages
Selecting judge: Rika Noguchi
He doesn’t seem to have tried to condense the work, and this made it look completely different from the other works. I don’t really know why, but I feel vastness. I felt that it would be a bit adventurous to pick this for a New Cosmos of Photography Excellence Award, but I chose it anyway because it was what I would choose. He’s not the finished article, but he makes me think that he will develop even more probing or wider reaching expressions. He has this power to make me want to see what he produces in the future. I’m interested in seeing how he will jump from this type of work to his next type of work. He’s probably a person who is even better at creating pictures than taking photographs. If there were only a few pictures, I think they’d look as though he’d just put them together on a whim, but because there are so many, I felt that he possesses a heart-felt creative drive, a deep desire to make things.
PROFILE
Masanori Hata
| 1984 | Born in Fukuoka Prefecture |
| 2009 | Opened the Akarui Heya gallery |
| 2012 | Established the publishing label A Organization |
| 2022 | Currently working from two bases in Tokyo and Oita |
Publications
What is Photography? Ryudai Takano x Masanori Hata, a collection of conversations (2013)
History of Photography in the 22nd Century: 35 Contemporary Artists x Masanori Hata, a collection of conversations (2015)
Suicide with a Mirror, a photo collection (2016)
Zoi & Heo, a photo collection (2019)
Today, The War of Kaiju in My Heart, a photo collection (2021)
2008Grand Prize