My first editioned book, titled Sincerity, was self-published in the summer of 2006. The first edition of 8 copies was printed on IJA Premium Duo Brite Matte paper using an Epson 4800 inkjet printer and Epson UltraChome K3 inks. The photographs contained in the book were taken while I was living in Tokyo between the fall of 2004 and summer of 2005 and again in the summer of 2006 using an AU A5506T cellphone and a Canon PowerShot S80 camera. The photographs were post-processed and prepared for output using Adobe Photoshop CS2. The 8 copies were hand-bound myself and are availible for purchase. Please use the contact form on the left for enquiries.

Strangely, I chose to create a book entirely of my photography as a direct result of my experiences in painting. The imagery in most of the paintings I have created is taken directly out of photographs that I have taken. While working on my series of prints and paintings during the summer of 2005, I began to wonder what I was adding to the photographs by transforming them into paintings. I decided that I should try working with the photographs directly instead of blindly clinging to painting.

Sincerity is decidedly monumental and epic in scope, being comprised of over 270 images. The imagery in the book comes from both the photographs I took while living in Japan as a student and the over 10,000 images I took while returning to Tokyo this summer. I chose the book form to create this work so that I could have the space to explore my many different ideas and bring them together in a singular piece. Unlike my other artworks that focus on a limited gamut of my experiences in Japan, the book is meant to encompass the greater range of my experience of living in Tokyo. In the chapters, I touch on themes such as gender stereotypes, power relationships in the urban environment, and feelings of being lost within the masses of humanity. These themes are developed and restated throughout the book as the reader proceeds through the nine chapters. The progression through the hundreds of images builds and develops these themes and explores the different ways in which they relate to each other. This is done through the sequencing of the images. It is this development and progression that make the book different and unique as a singular artwork. Because of the way the images relate to each other, they say much more than they could individually.

Most books, even artists’ books, are not designed with the intention of the book itself as an art object. The book is often merely the de facto container of information. No more. No less. What I have done with my book Sincerity is the inverse of this trend. That is, I designed the information around the book structure, sequencing the book in the form of a Western codex. In the West, such a book is usually read left-to-right, top-to-bottom. In Japan, a book bound in such a way might either be read in the Western fashion, or it could be read in the Japanese fashion of right-to-left depending on the subject matter. Academic books, and books dealing with Western subject matter are typically bound to be read from left-to-right. Fiction and other books are bound so as to be read in the traditional Japanese manner of right-to-left. My book perhaps falls somewhere between the two conventions since my audience is composed of both Japanese and Westerners. In the course of my research, I reviewed a number of library books by Japanese photographers. Many of these books were bound so they would be read right-to-left, but the library that owns the books decided to put their barcodes, stickers, etc. on the book as if the book were to be read left-to-right. Seeing these visual signals, and without giving it a second thought, I began reading these books from left-to-right. It was not until I reached the “end” and saw the title page and contents that I realized my error. Since I was born and raised in America, it is the most natural and easy course of action for me to read a book in such a way, left-to-right. Similarly, although I can read Japanese, if English and Japanese are placed right next to each other on a sign, even if the English is much smaller, my eye is immediately drawn towards the English, as if the Japanese was not even there.

Gaining inspiration from this strange experience, I have decided to arrange my book so it can be read both left-to-right and right-to-left as it falls into the hands of different readers. Respective English and Japanese title pages, colophons, and embossing of the title on the covers have all been made in their correct places for the two respective ways of reading. This way, when a reader picks up the book, they will read it in whichever way comes most naturally, since there are visual cues for both audiences to follow.
Naturally, the meaning gleaned from the readings will be slightly different depending on the direction the book is read. I have tried to arrange the book so that it follows a somewhat mirrored layout. The book is composed of 9 chapters. Regardless of how the book is read, there are four chapters leading up to the middle, 5th, chapter, then four chapters afterwards. The 5th chapter is the longest of all the chapters, and, it could be said, the one that most directly speaks to the overall theme of the book, the everyday life of Tokyo. In order to highlight this important point, I chose to have Chapter 5 feature black and white photographs, while those of the other chapters are entirely in color. The other eight chapters all mirror each other in one way or another. The 1st and 9th chapters, the 2nd and 8th chapters, and so on, have related themes which link them together.

In addition to the structure and format of the book itself, the information it contains, in this case nearly 270 images, is sequenced into a very deliberate order. These are not merely what I consider my 270 best photos, they are a collection of images that I chose for their cohesion with each other and with my theme. Through the book format, they become one composite artwork, not merely single, separate images. One image follows another for deliberate, although not necessarily narrative, reasons. This refers to not just the pairings of images on the two-page spread, but to how the images speak to each other as the reader flips through the pages. The reader might find a person on page 10 who is transformed into another person on page 3 as the reader turns the pages. This transitioning of images can be subtle. Themes stated at one point might disappear only to reappear dozens of pages later in a subsequent chapter. With each repetition of the theme, the meaning changes based on context taking into account the images that preceded it.

Of great importance to me when considering my role as the photographer of these images was my relationship to the people I was photographing. Japan is a largely racially homogenous nation and my status as an outsider is imminently apparent. Instead of viewing this as a drawback, I believe that my status as an outsider brings a fresh edge to my work which makes it different than if a Japanese person were taking pictures of Japanese people. Just as Americans often have unrealistic stereotypes of Japanese culture, Japanese people have their own unrealistic stereotypes of themselves. My images equally combat the American view of Japan as a country best represented by anime and temples at the same time as they confront the Japanese audience with the banal reality of life in contemporary Japan. I have often been told by my Japanese friends that they find my images interesting because they are not something that they themselves would think to make art about. The mundane realities of life, the train, the street, are commonly ignored and therefore, not seen much, even in contemporary Japanese art. As a fresh pair of eyes, I see things that might not be noticed by a native Japanese viewer. By painting a picture of it or taking a photograph of it and showing it to that native Japanese person, I can make them pay attention to it and bring it into their consciousness.

I have tried to make Sincerity an honest representation of everyday life in contemporary Japan. It is my hope that the reader will have a glimpse into Japan as I experienced it while living in Tokyo. The stress caused by the lifestyle of Tokyo is worn on all the faces of the people I photographed. I feel a strong connection to those people because I too had to deal with the same stresses and anxiety coupled with the stress of living in a very foreign culture. The hand-held size of the book gives the work a degree of intimacy perhaps lacking in my larger paintings. This sense of intimacy is important given the candid nature of many of the photographs in the book. Through my experiences, the reader should feel a human connection to the people in the photographs. They are not meant to be portrayed or viewed as some great “Other”, but as fellow human beings who are living in perhaps somewhat different, although largely similar circumstances.

 

© Copyright 2008 Matthew Messmer. All Rights Reserved