- 2019.07.05
- Noritoshi Hirakawa, A special program 'The anima's talent'
Special Program
The anima's talent
During the exhibition 'Seeking a Light' (2019.7.13 - 2019. 8.10), Noritoshi Hirakawa's series of photography works 'The anima's talent' will be exhibited at STANDING PINE at the same time.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung describes the anima as an archetype
symbolising the unconscious female component of the male psyche,
whereas Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner states that ‘a woman has a
male ether body, and a man has a female ether body’. These ideas led
me to conceptualise my new definition of the anima as a form of
masculinity.
This alternative definition of the anima denotes the kind of
femininity that male spectators discover in a woman who plays a female
role and yet exudes an inner masculinity; in such an instance, the
fantastical image represented by the woman functions as an instrument
of self-affirmation. The traditional Kabuki, Baroque and Chinese
operas, in which male actors often perform the parts of female
characters, have always resonated well with audiences. Furthermore, in
the plays performed by Takarazuka Revue, the animus as a male figure
inherent in a female is lavishly played by female performers, often to
enthusiastic support from female audiences. This fact underpins the
conclusion that a masculinity lies at the core of femininity.
When the anima—that is, an inner male figure being played by a female
model as an expression of femininity—becomes the subject of a
photograph, this paradoxically triggers a fascination in masculinity
through the medium of femininity which she never has. I believe it is
a great talent of a woman to achieve a pleasure by spontaneously
taking this complicated process into her, and it is my hope that
viewers of this latest series entitled The anima’s talent, produced in
collaboration with the Japanese model Akina Minami, will keep this
important premise in mind.
Noritoshi Hirakawa
https://standingpine.jp/en/exhibitions/13
