Anything Wrong! ナンデェ！！

This work is a photomontage featuring MISHIMA Masao, who performed in Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths. The term “photomontage” is derived from montage, the French term for assemblage. It refers to overlapping and combining two or more images in a composite photograph. The bold combination of dynamic images in this photograph gives a sense of the photographer’s feelings about the depressed state of society. HANAYA Kanbee was born in Osaka and traveled to many parts of Asia, including Manchuria and Singapore, living for a year and a half in Shanghai before opening a studio in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture. That international experience may account for the modern, rather stateless feel of his work. His photomontages are strikingly impressive, and his Ships series, with compositions that slice across the print at an angle, give a sense of the impact of the Bauhaus and of Constructivism.