OUT OF JOINT – Seiichi Furuya

Exhibition in cooperation with STYRIARTE

Opening on June 19, 7PM, Hauptplatz 6, Graz

Welcome: Mathis Huber & Helmut Reinisch

Introduction: Manuela Schlossinger

Seiichi Furuya is one of Austria’s most important ambassadors for contemporary auteur photography with exhibitions at the Albertina in Vienna, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among many others. In this country, photography as an artistic medium is still fighting for acceptance and publicity. It is all the more vital to make such important positions tangible in solo exhibitions.

Furuya’s approach to photography is an immediate one. It is not about the staged attempt to depict reality – but rather about life and, above all, the memory of it. On 7 October 1985, Christine Gössler, Furuya’s wife, took her own life after struggling with an advanced mental illness. There are countless ways to deal with such an enormous personal loss: disbelief, grief or even repression. Seiichi Furuya, however, opted for constant memory and chose photography as the medium for this commemoration. The artist presented many exhibitions and publications on this topic under the collective name Mémoires. 

These exhibitions were stories told for the public. Starting with the portraits of Christine in combination with varying photographs of other groups of works, scenically arranged works served as mediators and catalysts for a story of life defined by memory. On the other hand, despite the extremely positive international reception, Furuya produced the publications solely for himself. For Furuya, the printed photo books represented a preserved state of his memories at the time the books were written. For him, moving on with his life meant being in a constantly changing state of memory of his wife. New, more recent photos were added, forming a new narrative thread with the photos from the artist’s seven years together with his wife.

The current exhibition “Out of Joint” has already been shown twice in Japan and is now the artist’s first solo exhibition in Graz since 2005. The title Out of Joint describes the fluid state of time in Furuya’s memory. It brings the deceased from the past into the time that arises when the past and present combine, and the past is experienced again and again.

The chronological sequence of the photographs in the exhibition is not in the foreground and is brought into narrative context by the juxtaposition and sequence of motifs from the couple’s time together and the artist’s subsequent loneliness. 

The temporal component only becomes apparent when looking at the dates of the portraits of his wife. This is where the documentation of the change, the subtle decay of a person becomes visible and tangible, starting from a blossoming bud to the penetrating emptiness of loss. 

Seiichi Furuya’s lived memory – his photographic work – walks the narrow border between poetry and confrontation. It is a work that strays aware from the investigation of media-immanent problem areas widespread in photography, in favour of the immediacy of life. The direct authenticity that his works convey leaves the audience moved and pensive and offers insights into the life and lived memory of Seiichi Furuya.

Manuela Schlossinger