“That hard to pin down in words yearning that lurks in the depths of everyone’s heart.” Such thoughts floated through my mind as I first looked at HASHIGRAPHY.

When I met HASHI (Yasuomi Hashimura) for the first time, we clicked instantly. But in truth, clicking with HASHI in an encounter is not some easygoing process; indeed, I must say it was more shocking than easy.

The nature of my job means I am often directly involved in discovery work. In the process of critiquing art, there are of course the encounters with the many widely known masterpieces throughout the world and there is value in that process. But there is nothing more unutterably exciting than encountering some new thing, something I myself have never before known, something that has yet to be discovered by anyone else. Because I seek out the joy of such encounters, you could say that I am constantly involved in excavation work. In that sense, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that my meeting with HASHI, and with HASHIGRAPHY, was like the excavation of unknown art.

HASHI has built a worldwide reputation as an advertising photographer, and yet I believe that, in essence, HASHI is a creator. He takes on photography as fine art, setting one axis of his efforts on the grand theme of “time” and the other axis on his unique views of humanity and of the world that grasps the essential heart of “things”. Through such parsing he has moved beyond the bounds of simple worldly success and approaches the pinnacle of the “Tao of photography.” I myself have taken photographs, and in the past have seen countless photographic works, but until now I had never encountered works that were brimming with such unique creativity.

Through HASHIGRAPHY, HASHI makes us think of scenes in which people in the year 3000 view and appreciate his art works. With such thoughts in mind, the forms of his works reflected in that distant time are made to “reappear” in the twenty-first century time frame we currently live in. Further, most of the models for those works are things that, by necessity, conjure images of the past, whether Roman ruins or ancient Parisian streetscapes. In other words, the origin or starting point of HASHIGRAPHY uses the creative processes of the present to convey the photographic subjects of the past to the future.

The act of reporting or conveying the things of the past to the future via the transit point of the present, in fact, has much in common with the act of excavating ancient ruins. For example, one of the most famous Roman ruins is the site of Pompeii south of Naples, buried in the year 79 by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. For years this site was the subject of ongoing excavations, and today the ruins have been opened to the public, with the majority of the site’s artifacts displayed at the national museum in Naples. Many thoughts pass through the minds of those of us living today as we visit Pompeii and see the shapes and forms of an ancient two-thousand-year-old Italian city. We stand amidst the ruins, looking at the waterways and government houses, the merchant streets, the villas and the homes of the common people. First, we visually grasp these elements of “the past,” and in the forms generated by that encounter, our hearts experience a time slip to two thousand years ago as thoughts race through our minds of that ancient time when 25,000 people lived in this city. Those ruins, those artifacts are to be preserved for the future as important historical artifacts. A thousand years from now people will visit this place and stand like me today. They too will imagine the glory of Pompeii, some three thousand years before, in the days before the eruption.

HASHIGRAPHY is sweepingly grand, and at the same time, minutely detailed. There is boldness, a fresh novelty as he reflects thoughts of how his works will be viewed not just one hundred years from now, but rather a millennium from now into his present creative process. At the same time, his style embodies the texture of weatherworn photographs, the tone of ink drawn paintings. They pierce their viewers’ eyes, at times with gentle appeal, at other times with intimidating energy. All of his works contain the unique sensitivity that only HASHI, facing “things” for long periods of time, can evince. That sensitivity is what allows him to evoke, through photography, that overflowing of the true essence of his subjects as “objects”.

The Action Still Lifes—HASHI’s signature works that freeze that one- in-a-million “eternal instant”—are a type of HASHIGRAPHY made from a completely different approach. HASHI is absorbed by the creative process of interpreting the theme of “time” and its varying time spans, conveyed impartially to all. HASHI’s existence is devoted to the heightening of this intensely personal photographic path, and I have a hunch that this way of being will have a great influence on the fine art scene, not only in Japan, but also in the world in general. In terms of just Japan, today it continues the process of sending out its great geniuses to the world overseas. In the midst of such flow, HASHI sought his own place to shine in the world. HASHI’s return to Japan, with his success a memento of his travels, and in the desire to introduce his works to Japan, is a welcome event. I sense that these works will have much to teach the Japanese of today.

HASHI and I are both of the same generation. I graduated from university, set off for studies in Rome, and along the path of scholarship and research, attained my current position. On the other hand, HASHI set off on his own for America, there to fully succeed at the American Dream. I can’t help but think that this meeting between two people from such different fields was somehow fated. In the future, HASHI will be related to the work of excavation, and I wonder, in turn, how my life as a scholar will be changed by our encounter. I look forward to seeing how the results of “my excavations” will transform with HASHI’s collaboration into yet again newer forms of art.