Look Inside
Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
KAMI is a deeply personal and meditative project by Hitoshi Fugo. Conceived across nearly three decades, the work explores the tension between destruction and transformation, between what is lost and what remains.
The series juxtaposes two distinct bodies of images: photographs taken in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, and close studies of a partially burned industrial paper roll that Fugo found outside a fire-ravaged printing factory in Tokyo. In both, he searches for unexpected beauty in the ruins, forms that have been stripped of their function, worn by time or trauma, yet still resonate with presence.
The Japanese word “kami” means both “god” and “paper” and this ambiguity forms the philosophical core of the work. In the face of natural disaster and human-made destruction, KAMI reflects on the fragility of matter, the absence of divinity, and the possibility of poetic reconstruction through photographic seeing.
Fugo’s images neither document nor narrate in a conventional sense. Instead, they gesture toward something more elusive: the spiritual residue of things broken, burned, or left behind. KAMI invites us to contemplate what remains once the essential has been undone.
Hitoshi Fugo, Japanese b. 1947 (Kanagawa Prefecture)
Fugo is widely recognized for his abstract and contemplative approach to both the mundane and the monumental. After studying photography at Nihon University, he honed his craft as an assistant to the legendary Eikoh Hosoe, a background that likely influenced his deep sensitivity to light, shadow, and texture. Fugo first gained significant international attention with his 1997 series Flying Frying Pan, in which he used the camera to "reinvent" a common kitchen utensil, transforming it into a series of surreal, almost celestial forms through tight framing and dramatic lighting.
In his more recent work, Fugo has turned his focus toward themes of impermanence and the resilience of matter. His 2025 photobook KAMI, published by L’Artiere, serves as a poetic meditation on destruction and silent transformation. The project bridges two distinct periods: the immediate aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in Kobe and a more personal study of a charred roll of paper salvaged from a burned factory. The title itself plays on the dual meaning of the Japanese word "kami," which can mean both "paper" and "god," reflecting a spiritual connection to the materials he documents.
Fugo’s style is characterized by a refusal to document devastation in a purely journalistic way; instead, he seeks out an "abstract grace" in what remains. By focusing on fragments and objects stripped bare by nature or fire, he creates imagery that suggests things returning to the soil rather than simply being destroyed. Today, his work is held in permanent collections such as the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, and he continues to be a vital figure for those interested in the intersection of fine art and documentary photography.
