Exhibition at Copenhagen Photo Festival 2011

Inside Sumo Wrestling (Manny Santiago)


I have an exhibition currently on display at the Copenhagen Photo Festival (next to BOP’s… In search of Humanistic Photography.

Text from the exhibition:

The sumo world is a vast landscape with nebulous practices based on ancient shinto ritual and the samurai warrior code of bushido. In its most basic form it is a celebration of purity and strength, but like our physical world it too produces mirages of mountains. What is seen on television and experienced by attending a live tournament is the facade which obscures what goes on behind the scenes. Fiercely protected by the fans, police, politicians as an unbreakable institution symbolizing more than the country of Japan itself, but the austere ethos of a frugal and productive people. People who believe in honor, who do not take shortcuts, who do not cheat.

Better than merely attending a tournament, going to the sumo “stable” is a great window into seeing how difficult a day in the life is for the vast majority of the wrestlers, most of whom will never get anywhere near the coveted grand champion or yokozuna position. Worse, they could end up like Takasha Saito, the 17-year-old sumo hopeful who died in 2009 at the hands of fellow wrestlers instructed to haze him by stablemaster Junichi Yamamoto. Failure is unacceptable. There is a kind of nobility inherent in any grunt work and despite, or perhaps because of, all this rigid rule-mongering the adherents of sumo have managed to convey this beautifully throughout the centuries old history of the sport.

Toves Galler
Vesterbrogade 97
1620 København V

June 9 – 16, 2011

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 19th, 2011 at 09:40. It is filed under Exhibitions and tagged with , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • Bautisk

    These are excellent. Wonderful work.

  • http://www.shadowgraphy.org Long Wei

    I had the chance to see the exhibition in Toves Galleri (I was exposing together with BOP right in front) and I must say Manny’s exhibition is a great piece of work.
    First, I am a big fan of the few photographers who take the risk to mix black and white and color in the same exhibition. And this is what Manny did with panache ! The black and white photographs are grainy, like moody drawings made with charcoal (as good as Bertrand Meunier from tendance floue agency), my favorite is the 10th (as per flash slideshow above), an incredible wide scene with dark edge and two white fighter kings in the center. The print of that photograph is a must seen, there is so much power and tension there… For the color ones, in fact they are almost monochrome with some tint or spots that gives the full dimension to the scenes. The best one is the number 7th,  I guess it’s a scene captured before fight, I like the humorous green exit sign on top of that huge sumo guy.

    Manny, I had no chance to meet you in CPH but thanks again for your exhibition !

  • http://sugardisaster.com/wharehouse Manny Santiago

    Thank you

  • http://sugardisaster.com/wharehouse Manny Santiago

    Long Wei,

    Thank you for your kind and specific words! Always appreciated. Look forward to actually meeting you in the future and of course to all BOP exhibitions as well.