Eikoh Hosoe, who died on Sept. 16 in Tokyo, was part of a group of avant-garde artists in postwar Japan who were determined to create a new visual language.

       Working like a film director or an improv coach, he coaxed narratives out of his extraordinary collaborators, who included the choreographer and dancer Tatsumi Hijikata, a founder of butoh, a ghostly new form of dance theater; the celebrated ultranationalist author Yukio Mishima; and the gender-fluid performer and puppeteer Simon Yotsuya.

       Together, they made images that explored gender and desire, sex and death, and mythology.

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