THE MUD CYCLE
Serie, Black and white photographs, Tokyo 2014 - 2016
For over 2 years Olaf Wipperfürth photographed regularly two traditional japanese Sumo schools
( Chiganoura Beya + Takadawa beya ) during their early morning training session.
Taking pictures in theses places opened not only a view on the visual language of
sumoculture of today
vs. complexity of hypertech societies, but also a sort of intimate mysterious psychogram,
Represented through unfamiliar, almost dance and trance like movements and emotions, we
enter a fragile archaic set. The captured movements and athmosphere in these images are
ment to locate more the theatrical qualities of comtemporary dance then those of combat.
Olaf Wipperfürth excludes in his photography the actual moment of wrestling, instead he
concentrates on the abstaction and the mud imprints on the sumo bodies as sign of defeat,
acceptance of submission, tollerance.
