Mitsutoshi Hanaga

Mitsutoshi Hanaga (1933–1999) was a Japanese photographer and artist renowned for his extensive documentation of Japan’s postwar avant-garde art, counterculture, and social movements. Born in Otsuka, Tokyo, Hanaga lived through the transformative decades of the 1950s to 1980s, capturing the dynamism and contradictions of a rapidly changing society. His work focused on marginalized communities, avant-garde performances, and social issues, including environmental pollution, student protests, and the Butoh dance movement. Influenced by photographers like Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, Hanaga began his career experimenting with photograms and decalcomania before transitioning to photojournalism and documentary photography.

Hanaga’s approach was deeply empathetic, aligning his lens with the underprivileged and rebellious. He documented key figures and collectives such as Hi-Red Center, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Tatsumi Hijikata, and Shūji Terayama, as well as radical movements like environmental activism and feminism. His photographs, often taken with a Minolta CLE camera, combined a journalistic eye with a choreographic sensibility, blurring the lines between documentation and performance art. Despite personal challenges, including tuberculosis and severe arthritis, Hanaga remained a prolific figure, leaving behind an archive of over 100,000 negatives. His work gained international recognition, with exhibitions at prestigious venues like the Pompidou Centre, Tate Modern, and the Venice Biennale. The Mitsutoshi Hanaga Archives Project, led by his son Taro, continues to catalog and share his legacy.