Ogawa Takayuki
Beyond the Mirror
It was a very hot and humid summer day in 1995. The sun was radiant and searing.
Feeling a little sick, I went to see a doctor who checked me into the hosoital.
There, I endured one dehumanizing test after another.
I was then told that I had cancer.
Stunned, I imagined a dying bird, trying to fly in vain. The image was flat, colorless, and silent.
In the recovery room, after nine hours of surgery,
survival was all that mattered. Days of rehabilitation
followed.
One day I taped my X-ray film on the window of my hospital
room. The X-ray of my body floated
against the Tokyo skyline. I recognized it as a portrait of myself.
Before I was sick, I never thought of making self-portraits.
But, now I felt compelled to turn the camera
on myself before I could turn it back on the world around me.
This is why these photos are here -- self portraits
beyond the illusion of the mirror. (George Segal's
works are staring at me from behind the frame)
Still surviving. Still connected.
Takayuki Ogawa
1936 Tokyo, Japan
Education & Experience:
1959 B.A, Nihon University, College of Art, Department of Photography, Tokyo
1966-1968 Live in New York City doing freelance photography
1969-present Continues to do photographic
art, reportage, commercial photo and film
Solo Exhibitions:
1968 New York Is Nikon Salon, Tokyo
1969 New York Is George Eastman House, Rochester, N Y
1987 Orson Welles Seed Hall, Tokyo
1998 Love's Body Tokyo Metropolotan Museum
Beyond the Mirror: A Self-Portrait Houston center for Photography
1999 Tamashii no mesa [Mesa of the soul] Photo Gallery International,
Tokyo
2000 Chinmoku no syozo [Portrait of silence] Galerie SOL, Tokyo
TAKAYUKI OGAWA is a freelance photographer
and commercial film maker whose professional work has
been published throughout the world. The work for this exhibition is his personal
document of
diagnosis, treatment and recovery from cancer. This work has been syown in
Japan and the United Staes.