was a Japanese photographer best known within Japan for four series of monochrome photographs: scenes of buildings in and close to Tokyo, portraits of people in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, and rural and town life in India and Turkey. He pursued each of these for over two decades, and each led to one or more book-length collections.
Although previously a respected name in Japanese photography,Note Kikai's winning of the Ina Nobuo Award in 1988 (for details, see below); and the inclusion by 2000 of his works in the permanent collection of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography as implied by Sumiyo Mitsuhashi (), "Kikai Hiroo" (), Nihon shashinka jiten () / 328 Outstanding Japanese Photographers (Kyoto: Tankōsha, 2000; ), p. 98 (despite its alternative title in English, the book is in Japanese only). Kikai was not widely known until 2004, when the first edition of his book Persona, a collection of Asakusa portraits, won both the Domon Ken Award and Annual Award of the PSJ.Domon Ken Award: "Domon Ken–shō no rekishi to zen-jushō-shashinka" (, list of award-winners since 1982) (accessed 6 March 2006). PSJ award: "2004-nen Nihon Shashin Kyōkai-shō jushōsha". In 2009, the ICP and Steidl copublished Asakusa Portraits for an international market.
Early years Kikai was born in the village of Daigo (now part of Sagae, Yamagata Prefecture) on 18 March 1945 as the seventh and last child (and fifth son) of the family.Place of birth, siblings: Kōtarō Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo" (), in Japanīzu fotogurafāzu: 14nin no shashinka-tachi no "ima" () / Japanese photographers (Tokyo: Hakusuisha, 2005; ), p. 131. (Despite the book's alternative English title, the text is all in Japanese. This article, which runs pp. 129–43, previously appeared in Asahi Camera, November 2004, pp. 248–52.) Date of birth: "Domon-Ken-shō jushō kinen Kikai Hiroo shashinten 'Persona' " (, Hiroh Kikai photograph exhibition "Persona", in celebration of the Domon Ken Award), Shōmeidō Gallery (松明堂ギャラリー), 2005 (accessed 5 March 2006). He had a happy childhood, from the age of 11 or so preferring to play by himself in the nature that surrounded the village.Noriyuki Kanda (, Kanda Noriyuki), "Gendai no shōzō: Shashinka Kikai Hiroo: Jinsei no fuhen o toru to iu otoko" (, A portrait of today: The photographer Hiroh Kikai: The man who photographs the universality of life), Aera, 25 April 2005. p. 61 (the article runs pp. 59–63). He graduated from high school in 1963 and worked in Yamagata for a year, and then went to Hosei University in Tokyo to study philosophy. As a student he was keen on the cinema—he particularly enjoyed the films of Andrzej Wajda, who would later contribute essays to some of his books, and Satyajit Ray—and said that he would have worked in film production if it did not require writing, a task he never enjoyed, and money, which he lacked.Film tastes: Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", p. 132. Film as a career: Kanda, "Gendai no shōzō", p. 63.
Immediately after his graduation in 1968,Both Kikai's book Perusona / Persona (first impression, 2005, n.p.) and his Tōkyō Mutan / Labyrinthos (first impression, 2007, n.p.) say 1978, presumably first a typo or mistake and then inherited misinformation. His other books India (n.p.) and Ya-Chimata (n.p.) have him graduating in 1969. His book In-between 8 says 1968. (For details see "Books by Kikai".) Kikai said that 1968 is correct (conversation, 3 March 2006). Kikai worked for two years as a truck driver and for two in a shipyard.Hideko Oiwake (, Oiwake Hideko), "Kindaika ni norenakatta otoko: Kikai Hiroo" (, A man who couldn't get on board modernization: Hiroh Kikai), Shashin Jidai, November 1984, p. 141. Meanwhile, he stayed in touch with his philosophy professor from his university days, Sadayoshi Fukuda, whose interests extended to writing a regular column for the magazine Camera Mainichi; he introduced Kikai to its editor, Shōji Yamagishi, who showed him photographs by Diane Arbus that made a great impact on Kikai.Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", pp. 132–33; Kanda, "Gendai no shōzō", p. 62. Kikai started to take photographs in 1969. At that time (when somebody fresh out of university could expect to earn ¥40,000 per month), a Hasselblad SLR camera normally cost ¥600,000; Kikai heard of an opportunity to buy one for ¥320,000 and mentioned this to Fukuda, who immediately lent him the money, with no interest, and no date or pressure for repayment. (The loan was eventually repaid.) This Hasselblad 500CM, with its 80 mm lens, was what Kikai used for his portraits thereafter.Purchase and use of the Hasselblad: "Watashi kyō kinō ashita 24: Kikai Hiroo san" (, Me today yesterday tomorrow 24: Hiroh Kikai), Croissant no. 640, 10 July 2004, p. 98 (the article runs pp. 98–101).
Career Kikai thought that work on a boat might be photogenic, but, having no experience, could not get a job on one. He was eventually accepted on a boat fishing for tuna when he displayed the scar from an unneeded appendectomy as evidence of one risk fewer that his presence might force the boat into port.Kanda, "Gendai no shōzō", p. 62. He worked on the boat in the Pacific from 6 April until 9 November 1972, with a stop in Manzanillo (Mexico) for provisions. It was during this time that he took his first photographs to be published, in the May 1973 issue of Camera Mainichi.Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", p. 133; Kikai, "Sen'in techō bangō: Misaki 16000" () / "Seamen's Registered Number: Misaki 16000", Camera Mainichi, May 1973, pp. 95–101 (the minimal text within the latter is in Japanese only, despite its secondary title in English). In 1973 he won a prize for his submission to the 14th exhibition of the Japan Advertising Photographers' Association.Mitsuhashi, "Kikai Hiroo", p. 98. But Kikai decided that in order to be a photographer he needed darkroom skills, and he returned to Tokyo to work at Doi Technical Photo (1973–76).Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", p. 134. He became a freelance photographer in 1984, a year after his first solo exhibition and the same year as his second.
Living close to Asakusa (Tokyo), Kikai often went there on his days off, taking photographs of visitors. He stepped up his visits in 1985; a number of collections of his portraits taken there have been published.
Kikai's other long-term photographic projects are of working and residential neighborhoods in and near Tokyo, and of people and scenes in India and Turkey. All these are black and white. However, his occasional diversions included color photographs of the Gotō Islands and even of nudes.Gotō islands: "Nihon o arukō (19): Kikai Hiroo to aruku (Nagasaki): Gotō rettō" (, Walking around Japan : Walking with Hiroh Kikai [Nagasaki]: The Gotō islands), Photo Contest, July 2006, pp. 4, 6, 8–16. Nudes: "Hareta hi ni" () / "On clear day", Asahi Camera, July 2005, pp. 47–52.
Unusually in Japan, where photographers tend to join or form groups, Kikai was never in any group, preferring to work by himself.Kanda, "Gendai no shōzō", p. 61. When not setting out to take photographs, Kikai did not carry a camera with him. He left photographing his own family to his wife Noriko, and it is she who had the camera if they went on a trip together.Kanda, "Gendai no shōzō", p. 63.
In the early part of his career, Kikai often had to earn money in other ways: after three years' work in the darkroom, he returned to manual labor.Oiwake, "Kindaika ni norenakatta otoko", p. 141. By his own account in 1980 he briefly worked at an Isuzu plant, in 1982 in a Subaru plant.Kikai, Ōtachi no shōzō / Ecce homo, n.p. (for details see "Books by Kikai").
Kikai taught for some time at Musashino Art University, but he was disappointed by the students' lack of sustained effort and therefore quit.Name of the university: "Domon-Ken-shō jushō kinen Kikai Hiroo shashinten 'Persona' "; this says that he started there in 1994. Dissatisfaction: "Watashi kyō kinō ashita 24", p. 101.
Kikai died of lymphoma on 19 October 2020.鬼海弘雄氏が死去 写真家, Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 19 October 2020 (accessed 19 October 2020). 鬼海弘雄さん死去 写真家「Persona」, Tokyo Shinbun, 20 October 2020 (accessed 20 October 2020).摄影师｜鬼海弘雄：将人类永恒不变的东西，以肖像记录下来, The Paper (Shanghai), 20 October 2020 (accessed 20 October 2020).
Asakusa portraits Kikai had started his Asakusa series of square, monochrome portraits as early as 1973, but after this there was a hiatus until 1985, when he realized that an ideal backdrop would be the plain red walls of Sensō-ji. At that time, the great majority of his Asakusa portraits adopted further constraints: the single subject stands directly in front of the camera (originally a Minolta Autocord TLR, later the Hasselblad), looking directly at it, and is shown from around the knees upwards.Backdrop and constraints: Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", pp. 134–35. Autocord and Hasselblad: Iizawa, "Kikai Hiroo", p. 134. Kikai might wait at the temple for four or five hours, hoping to see somebody he wanted to photograph, and three or four days might pass without a single photograph; but he might photograph three people in a single day, and he photographed over six hundred people in this way.Time spent waiting, number photographed: "Watashi kyō kinō ashita 24", p. 98. Days with no photos, three people in a day: "Watakushi no naka no 'Persona (, My Persona), Tokyojin, November 2003, pp. 152–53 (Kikai in conversation with Midori Nakano and Taichi Yamada; article runs p. 148–54). He believed that to have a plain backdrop and a direct confrontation with the subject allows the viewer to see the subject as a whole, and as somebody on whom time is marked, without any distracting or limiting specificity."Watashi kyō kinō ashita 24", p. 99; "Watakushi no naka no 'Persona, p. 149.
Though Kikai started to photograph in Asakusa simply because it was near where he then lived, he continued because of the nature of the place and its visitors. Once a busy area, Asakusa has lost it's appeal. If it were as popular and crowded as it was before the war, Kikai said, he would go somewhere else."Watakushi no naka no 'Persona, p. 150.
Published in 1987, Ōtachi no shōzō / Ecce Homo was the first collection of these portraits. It is a large-format book with portraits made in Asakusa in 1985 to '86. Kikai won the 1988 Newcomer's Award of the Photographic Society of Japan (PSJ) for this book and the third Ina Nobuo Award for the accompanying exhibition.PSJ award: PSJ, "Kako no jushōsha ichiran" (, List of past PSJ award-winners) (accessed 6 March 2006); PSJ, "2004-nen Nihon Shashin Kyōkai-shō jushōsha" (, PSJ prize-winners for 2004) (accessed 6 March 2006). Ina Nobuo Award: announcement of 13th Ina Nobuo award, 1988 (, 13th Ina Nobuo Award , Hiroh Kikai, Ecce Homo), Nikon (accessed 5 March 2006.) Also see Ina Nobuo shō 20-nen: Nikon Saron ni miru gendai shashin no nenpu () / Ina Nobuo Award '76–'95, Nikon Salon Books 23 (Tokyo: Nikon, 1996), with a few pages devoted to the works of each of the winners of the Ina Nobuo Award to date (Kikai is on pp. 96–101), and also lists of the exhibitions at the Ginza and Shinjuku Nikon Salons.
In 1995, a number of portraits from the series were shown together with the works of eleven other photographers in Tokyo/City of Photos, one of a pair of opening exhibitions for the purpose-made building of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.Tokyo/City of Photos, the published catalogue of the exhibition (for details see "Other works with contributions by Kikai").
Ya-Chimata, a second collection of the portraits made in Asakusa, was published a year later.