It’s a little bit late, but for Tokyoites and current visitors to Tokyo not too late:  This weekend the first photography art fair is held in Japan: TOKYO PHOTO 2009. The fair is not that big – not to say quite small with 18 galleries participating, including four galleries from the USA. But some of the leading Japanese galleries have a booth like Tomio Koyama Gallery, Zeit-Photo Salon, MEM or Taro Nasu.

TOKYO PHOTO 2009 endeavors to be the foremost art fair of photography in Japan. The venue is located in the heart of international business and culture in Tokyo. To be held from September 4 to 6, Tokyo Photo 2009 will provide visitors with a unique opportunity to see and buy a wide range of photographic works from vintage prints to cutting-edge digitally enhanced images.

It would be great, if this first photography fair would be successful and would be repeated in the upcoming years. Until now we have two major photography fairs, Paris Photo in Europe and the AIPAD Photography Show New York in the USA. I think, a successful third fair in Asia would be an important tool to promote photography in Japan and nearby countries like China or Korea whose photography scenes are growing, but in which the market for photography still needs development. But of course, for this galleries from others Asian countries need to be included in future photography fairs…

THE PROVOKE ERA – Postwar Japanese Photography

I would love to see this show which opens on September 12 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The show is curated by Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography at the SFMOMA. Sandra did already the two fabulous traveling exhibitions which introduced leading Japanese photographers to the West: Daido Moriyama in 1999 and Shomei Tomatsu in 2006.

The tumultuous period following defeat in World War II proved fertile ground for a generation of Japanese photographers who responded to societal upheaval by creating a new visual language dubbed “Are, Bure, Boke” — rough, blurred, and out of focus. After the war, Japan experienced a complete overhaul of its national identity, catapulting itself from empire to democracy. Named for the magazine Provoke, which sought to break the rules of traditional photography, this exhibition traces how Japanese photographers responded to their country’s shifting social and political atmosphere. Though American audiences may be less familiar with photographers like Masahisa Fukase, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, and Shomei Tomatsu, SFMOMA has been actively acquiring the work of these internationally recognized artists since the 1970s. The photographs, magazines, and artist books in the show all come from the SFMOMA collection, considered one of the preeminent holdings of Japanese photography in the United States.
[Quote: SFMOMA]

PHOTOGRAPHY NOW – China, Japan, Korea

A second exhibition at the SFMOMA which will be worth a visit (also Sept. 12 – Dec. 20, 2009)

Drawn entirely from SFMOMA’s collection, Photography Now showcases pictures by 30 contemporary artists working in China, Japan, and Korea. Documentary work from China depicts a shifting culture, in particular rapid urbanization and the effects of industrialization on the countryside. Inspired by the work of Robert Frank, Luo Dan journeyed from Shanghai to Tibet, making pictures that explore how dramatic economic changes are affecting people throughout China. In Japan, Rinko Kawauchi makes lyrical pictures that focus on the poetic details of daily life, and Yasumasa Morimura examines the nature of cultural identity through appropriation. Bohnchang Koo’s minimal photographs of ordinary architectural elements recall traditional Korean landscape paintings and reflect an emerging Korean identity that references that country’s complicated history.
[Quote: SFMOMA]

The 2008 edition of Paris Photo – one of the world’s most important fairs for still photography – took place in the Carrousel du Louvre in mid-November. This year Japan was Guest of Honour, an exceptional opportunity to present an overview of Japanese photography. Photography has been a major feature of Japanese culture since its introduction in 1848, attracting wide international attention in the 1990s and growing world interest ever since.

We asked Ferdinand Brueggemann, Director of Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne and passionate founder of the photo blog Japan-Photo.info to discuss the current state of Japanese photography with the Guest Curator of the show, Mariko Takeuchi.

Ferdinand Brueggemann:
After decades of practically ignoring Japanese photography, why do you think the Western art world is suddenly developing a strong interest in learning about it?

Mariko Takeuchi:
I don’t think that it happens so sudden. It seems that the interest in Japanese photography in the Western countries grew in the 1990s especially, with a focus on individual artists like Nobuyoshi Araki, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Daido Moriyama. Then curators, collectors and researchers gradually became aware of the richness of Japanese photography and turned more attention to their background – this seems to coincide with the growing interest in the Japanese culture and subculture in general. The exhibition “History of Japanese Photography” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2003 was on a monumental event. And now we have the Paris Photo fair with Japan as guest of honor at the Paris Photo fair.

But the 1970s saw two major exhibitions on Japanese photography; in 1974 “New Japanese Photography” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi, then “Japan: A Self-Portait” at the International Center of Photography in 1979. These two exhibitions, taken together, introduced virtually every leading Japanese photographer of that time. Nonetheless these seminal exhibitions did not have any impact on the Western photography scene.

I wouldn’t say that there was no impact. But it’s true to some extent. Perhaps these exhibitions were too early; both were ahead of their time for two reasons:

When we think about the success of Japanese photography in the West since the 1990s, we have to be aware of the cultural and historical context. In the 1970s very few people knew about Japanese culture. People were not ready and there were still very few galleries and museums seriously devoted to photography, and research and educations on photography were still in their infancy.

I would say that in a sense the Western photography culture had to become more mature to accept Japanese photography.

It’s also very interesting that the huge interest in Japanese photography now coincides with a radical change of photographic medium, mainly due to the development of digital technology since one of the characteristics of the modern and contemporary Japanese photography is, in my opinion, that it often questions the nature of photography itself.

Do you think that the Japanese photography has a different character to Western photography, especially compared to main trends in the US and in Europe over the last two or three decades?

I do not think that Japanese photography in general has a defined characteristic or a certain style which distinguishes it from Western photography. Rather I would say that Japanese photography has an amazing diversity. Japanese photography is not easy to understand by examing style. This is partly because there is neither a strong art market nor there are schools who push a style or trend like in Western countries. For one thing, photography is, unlike other art forms, difficult to explain in terms of a particular style or other. Japanese photography has also had a close relationship with the development of domestic camera companies like Nikon or Canon. This has lead in general to a strong interest in the technology of the medium rather than producing art. These conditions encouraged Japanese photographers to develop the potentialities of photography in various ways.

In the “New Japanese Photography” exhibition catalogue John Szarkowski gave a definition of Japanese photography of the end 1960s and early 1970s which is probably the most quoted definition to this day. He wrote that the “quality most central to recent Japanese photography is its concern for the description of immediate experience” [emphasis added] and that many pictures are not a comment on experience, but “an apparent surrogate for experience itself”.

I still see this quality of immediate experience today in the works of certain photographers like in the claustrophobic street scenes by Osamu Kanemura or the poetic color photographs by Rinko Kawauchi and Mikiko Hara.

“Immediate experience” remains a valid characterization and you are right that it applies to artists like Rinko Kawauchi and Mikiko Hara. But at the same time we have Naoya Hatakeyama whose work is an intellectual exploration while Yuki Onodera’s and Hiroshi Sugimoto’s works are more about imagination or imaginary. And we also have artists like Ken Kitano or Tomoko Sawada whose work is more about the manipulative reflection on identity.

The photographers you mentioned have very diverse different concepts and topics, can you identify any major trends in the current Japanese photography?

I do not think that pointing out major trends would make much sense here because it seems too easy for me. I would like to say that there are many photographers in Japan whose works shift some borders or boundaries at a social or mental level in various ways. Ryudai Takano, for example, deals with the ambiguity of sexuality and Ken Kitano reflects the relationship between ‘me’ and ‘us’ by overlapping portrais of members of a specific group. In the context of photography being a tool for to reflect our society and our life, Asako Narahashi’s series “half awake and half asleep in the water” is in some ways symbolic. Her work, made by floating in the sea with a camera, gives the impression that we are looking at our world from the outside, shaking the reality and stability we take for granted in everyday life.

We have named several women artists already like Rinko Kawauchi, Tomoko Sawada and Asako Narahashi. But if you look back in the history of Japanese Photography there have been almost no female photographers until the mid-1990s. Only a few earlier women artist come to my mind like Miyako Ishiuchi and Michiko Kon. This seems to have changed completely; today I have the impression that Japanese women photographers are overtaking their male colleagues in numbers and in the levels of their success.

When we talk about women photographers, we should be aware of the socio-economic context of Japanese society. From around the late 1980s the consciousness of women’s social rights grew much stronger than ever, especially with the revision of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law of 1985 which encouraged many women to search for new roles in society besides being housewifes and working only in low-paid jobs. The young generation of women grew up with the new ideas about their roles in society. And we should also think about the technical background. The development of easier-to-use cameras was a huge step which made it much easier for non-professional photographers to produce better images. Being freed from necessity of concentrating on the technical side of photography has appealed very much to young women in since the 1990s. And there is also an institutional reason: museums, galleries and photography award exhibitions like Hitotsuboten or New Cosmos of Photography became very popular among young people. All of this together led to a boom in female photography.

Could you explain how the institutions and awards gave a boost to women photography?

Before the museums and galleries emerged in the 1980s and 1990s the main tools for the promotion of photography were the traditional Japanese photo magazines like Asahi Camera or Camera Mainichi which were key to the Japanese photography scene for decades. These magazines were macho places, I would say. Compared to them, the new institutions and awards are more open to female photographers.

Part II of the interview

A year later I saw Mikiko’s work again in the group exhibition about young Japanese women photographers “Private Room II” at Art Tower Mito. Curated by Kohtaro Iizawa this exhibition was a kind of assessment of the “onna no ko shashinka” (girly photographer) phenomenon which had already faded at that time. I felt that Mikikos work was misplaced in the girly photographer context, since she was a few years older than these ‘girlies’ like Hiromix and Yurie Nagashima. Also Hiromix’s and Nagashima’s main aim was to use the camera for to talk about themselves and to deal with their own identity. Mikiko’s topic is different, she does not speak about herself:

Primary speaking
What I photograph are people who I happen to pass by while I am walking down the street, or things and scenes that casually catch my eye in everyday life.
My snapshots are accumulations of daily incidents.
I don’t depend on coincidence, and it does not induce me to photograph either. Rather, I yield myself to the natural flow, go out and stop where I photograph. [...]
I am powerless against the outside world, and have neither special approach nor message.
[Quote: Mikiko Hara, in "Private Room II", 1999]

After my return to Germany I lost touch with Mikiko unfortunately and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw in 2005 a new book Hara Mikiko – Hysteric Thirteen in a Tokyo bookstore. I presume that this book led to an exhibition of her work at Cohen Amador Gallery, New York, last spring.

Sentient and contemplative, Haras color imagery of both people and places she passes in her native Japan arrests the viewer between feelings of levity and of foreboding. The aesthetic that she brings to her images imbues them with this tense balance, characteristic of daily life in the security states of the twenty first century. [...]
Her photographs simultaneously present the non-threatening surface of things while keenly alluding to the underlying tensions that exist just below these superficial realities, unnerving us and often unnerving the subjects in the photographs.
[Quote: Cohen Amador Gallery]

Hara lets her subjects body language and expressions speak as much as their surroundings. In one image, girls at the beach look surprisingly sullen considering their location. The sky and sand, both baize, come to frame the pastels of their garb and heighten the discomfort in their faces. They could be fearing an unsure future or just as easily frowning from the discomfort of their now wet clothes, or – as Hara would have us believe – both.
[Quote: Cohen Amador Gallery]

While Mikiko Hara was too old be considered a ‘girly photographer’ in the 1990s, nowadays she is often compared with a photographer who was too young to be included into this phenomenon.

It happened to me several times in the recent months that I was told that her photographs look like the work of Rinko Kawauchi. I think that this is a misunderstanding. While both photographers work in color, use midsize cameras for square images and do a lot of shots in the streets, Mikiko Hara’s approach is different to Rinko Kawauchi. Rinko Kawauchi’s work is first of all a poetic appreciation of life (which does not exclude to talk about death), with images which range from straight documentary photographs (see her book “Cui Cui”) to fragile, almost dreamlike images with delicate colors (see her book “Utatane”). Mikiko Hara’s photography is poetic as well, but she has a different topic. She talks about distance and isolation of people in public spaces – especially of women. And for this she applies a different use of colors. Her colors are more intense and sometimes a little bit caustic, which amplifies the impression of detachment of the subjects in her images.

I hope that in the future Mikiko’s work will be recognized for what it is, and not be put into albeit obvious but misleading contexts for to attach an easily utilizable label on her work…

[Update]
I just saw that Mikiko Hara’s work is included in the group exhibition “A PRIVATE HISTORY. Mikiko Hara, Masanori Ikeda, Kumi Oguro, Ryudai Takano” at the Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, Denmark (Sept. 29 – Dec. 21, 2007).

Mikiko Hara
1967 Born in Toyama pref.Japan
1990 B.A. in Philosophy, Keio University
1994 Graduates from Tokyo College of Photography
Solo exhibitions
1996 “Is As It”, Gallery le Deco 6, Tokyo
1998 “Agnus dei” Nikon Salon, Tokyo
2001 “Utsuro no Seihou”, Konica Plaza Eeast, Tokyo/ The Third Gallery Aya, Osaka
2004 “Hatsugo no Mawari”, Guardian Garden, Tokyo
2005 “Hysteric Thirteen Hara Mikiko Photo Exhibition”, PLACE M, Tokyo
2007 “Blind Letter”, Cohen Amador Gallery, New York
—
Recommended books:
Mikiko Hara – Hysteric Thirteen
Rinko Kawauchi: Utatane
Rinko Kawauchi: Cui Cui

In the last years the interest in Japanese photography books has jumped from non recognition to becoming a must have not only for specialized photo book collectors. Books which were completely unknown outside Japan except to a few well informed collectors and researchers are now sold at high prices by rare book dealers and at auctions.1

It all began in 1999 with the exhibition catalogue “Fotografia Publica. Photography in Print 1919-1939″.

This was the first time that a publication and large scale exhibition concentrated not on photographic prints for the wall but on the media, magazines and books, in which the photographs were printed.2
“Fotografia Publica” contains one Japanese book, Kiyoishi Koishi’s: “Early Summer Nerves”, 1937 and the two most important magazines from the 1930s: “Nippon” and “Kôga”. The magazine “Photo Times” is added as well, but even this magazine was very important for to promote and to spread the “New Vision” (Shinkô Shashin) in Japan, its design is not interesting at all. Additionally two photographers Masao Horino and Yasuzo Nojima are mentioned in “Fotografia Publica” with works published in western magazines. Unfortunatley “Fotografia Publica” misses Horino’s most praised series “Character of Great Tokyo” (Dai Tokyo no Seikaku), editied and designed by Takaho Itagaki and published 1931 in Chuokoron magazine and “Flowing through the City – Sumida River Album” (Shutokanryu – Sumidagawa no Album), edited and designed by Tomoyoshi MurayamaTomoyoshi Murayama was of vital importance for the Japanese art and photography scene. He introduced Dada to Japan in 1923 and founded the Dada group “Mavo”. 1925 he orgainzed a theatre where some of Japan’s first happenings and performance art took place and 1931 he brought the “seminal” travelling exhibition “Film und Foto” from Germany to Japan. The impact of this exhibition on Modern Japanese photography was extraordinary. For example it directly influenced a group of Japanese avant garde photographers and critics to found Kôga magazine., published in the same year in Hanzai Kagaku magazine.

Then came Andrew Roth’s milestone publication “The Book of 101 Books. Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century”. This book established the photography book as a legitimate media, as an “objet d´art” itself, besides the printed photography. It lists four Japanese books: Eikoh Hosoe, “Killed by Roses”, 1963; Kikuji Kawada, “The Map”, 1965; Nobuyoshi Araki, “Sentimental Journey”, 1971; Daido Moriyama, “Bye Bye Photography [Farewell Photography]“, 1972. While I agree that these books are “seminal” and that in the 1960s and 1970s epochal photographs and books were produced, its a little bit strange that Andrew Roth only choose books published within a time frame of less of than ten years.

In 2004 two more books on photography books were published: “The Open Book. A history of the photographic book from 1878 to the present”, by the Hasselblad Center, which added more books from the 1960s to the 1980s. Like “The Book of 101 Books” it focuses on Japanese photographers from the same period of time: the “Vivo” and “Provoke” era with Domon Ken, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama et al.

The second book published in 2004 by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, “The Photobook: A History. Vol. I” expands the list of Japanese books considerably. It shows Japanese books from the 1930s to the 1990s and it has a whole chapter devoted on post-war Japanese photography books. This book gives the most comprehensive outline of Japanese photography books, but it also misses the more recent publications from the last decade.

But this gap will be filled soon (partly) with the second volume of “The Photobook: A History” by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, which will be available in a few days. This books lists besides obviously important books like Takashi Homma, “Tokyo Suburbia”, 1998 and Rinko Kawauchi “Utatane”, 2001, much less known books like Masafumi Sanai, “I Don’t Know”, 1998 (one of my favorite Japanese photobooks) and Kohei Yoshiyuki, “Document Park”, 1980 (a book I have never seen).

The “Ultimate” List of 54 Japanese Photography Books

My list of Japanese photography books contains all Japanese books from the above mentioned publications (including “The Photobook: A History, vol. II”), plus three books from the The History of Japanese Photography.

1. Kiyoishi Koishi: Early Summer Nerves, (Shoka Shinkei), 1933
2. Various Photographers: Nippon, 1937
3. Yoshio Shimozato: Genus Mesemb: Surrealist Photography Collection (Mesemu Zoku: Chûgenjitusshugi Shashin-shu), 1940
4. Ken Domon: Hiroshima, 1958
5. Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Someday, Somewhere, (Aru Hi aru Tokoro] 1958
6. Ken Domon: The Children of Chikuho, (Chikuo no Kodomotachi) 1960
7. Shomei Tomatsu, Ken Domon: Hiroshima-Nagasaki Document, 1961
8. Eikoh Hosoe: Man and Woman, (Otoko to Onna), 1961
9. Eikoh Hosoe: Killed by Roses, (Barakei), 1963
10. Kikuji Kawada: The Map, (Chizu), 1965
11. Shomei Tomatsu: Nagasaki 11:02, 1966
12. Daido Moriyama: Japan – A Photo Theatre (Nippon Gekijo Shashincho), 1968
13. Eikoh Hosoe: Kamaitachi, 1969
14. Yasuhiro Ishimoto: Chicago, Chicago, 1969
15. Shomei Tomatsu: OO! Shinjuku, 1969
16. Koji Taki: First Abandon The World of Certainty, 1970
17. Nobuyoshi Araki: Photocopy Books, (Zerkkusu Shashincho), 1970
18. Ken Ohara: One, 1970
19. Takuma Nakahira: For a Language to Come, (Kitarubeki Kotoba no Tameni), 1970
20. Nobuyoshi Araki: Sentimental Journey, (Senchimentaru na Tabi), 1971
21. Daido Moriyama: Okinawa, 1971
22. Eikoh Hosoe: Ordeal by Roses Re-edited, (Barakei Shinshuban), 1971
23. Yoshio Takase: Toilet, (Benjo), 1971
24. Nobuyoshi Araki, Yoshio Takase, Koji Yaehata, Naohosia Tabogami, Fukuo Ikeda, Tomoko Kamiguchi: Young Ladies in Bathing Suits, (Mizugi no Yangu Redii-Tachi), 1971
25. Daido Moriyama: Farewell Photography [Bye Bye Photography], (Shashin yo Sayonara) 1972
26. Daido Moriyama: Hunter, (Karuido), 1972
27. Ihei Kimura: Pari, (Paris), 1974
28. Daido Moriyama: Another Country in New York, (Mo Kuni New York), 1974
29. Yutaka Takanashi: Towards the City, (Toshi-e), 1974
30. Kishin Shinoyama: A Fine Day, (Hareta Hi), 1975
31. Miyako Ishiuchi: Yokosuka Story, 1979
32. Seiji Kurata: Flash Up: Street PhotoRandom Tokyo 1975-1979, 1980
33. Kohei Yoshiyuki: Document Park, (Document Kôen) 1980
34. Masahisa Fukase: Ravens, (Karasu) 1986
35. George Hashiguchi: Seventeen’s Map, (Jûnanasai no chizu), 1988
36. Nobuyoshi Araki: Tokyo Lucky Hole 1983-1985 Shinjuku Kabukicho, 1990
37. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Exposed, 1991
38. Keizo Kitajima: A.D. 1991, 1991
39. Nobuyoshi Araki: The Banquet, (Shokuji), 1993
40. Ryuji Miyamoto: Kobe 1995, 1995
41. Hiromix: Girls Blue, 1996
42. Tadanori Yokoo: Waterfall Rapture: Postcards of Falling Water My Addiction My Collection, 1996
43. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Sea of Buddha, 1997
44. Hiromix: Hiromix, 1998
45. Masafumi Sanai: I Don´t Know, (Wakaranai), 1998
46. Takashi Homma: Tokyo Suburbia, 1998
47. Hiroshi Sugimoto: Theaters, 2000
48. Mika Ninagawa: Sugar and Spice, 2000
49. Yurie Nagashima: Pasttime Paradise, 2000
50. Taiji Matsue: Taiji Matsue, 2001
51. Rinko Kawauchi: Utatane, (Siesta), 2001
52. Osamu Kanemura: Spider´s Strategy, 2001
53. Daido Moriyama: ‘71-NY, 2002
54. Miyako Ishiuchi: Mothers, 2002

Some Modern Photography Books not Listed

But as I said in the headline, this is not the ultimate list of Japanese photography books. The reason is quite simple: All authors missed some “seminal” books, especially two books published in the 1920s/30s:

- Shinzo Fukuhara: Paris et la Seine, 1922
This is an important selection of works, photographed 1913 in Paris by Shinzo Fukuhara, a leading pictorialist artist.

Because almost all original works by Fukuhara from the 1910th and 1920s were lost during the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, the photobook Paris et la Seine is the main source for Fukuhara´s pictorialist photographs taken in Paris. The book is extremely rare and until now I have seen reproductions from the series just once in an exhibition at the Shoto Museum of Art in Tokyo. But a facsimile version of the book is due to be published by Kokoshukankokai in April 2007.

- Masao Horino: Camera: Eye x Steel: Composition, 1932
This book is a masterpiece of the New Vision (Shinkô Shashin) in Japan!

In 1932 Masao Horino published a monograph “Camera, Eye x Iron, Construction” which is one of the most important works for Japanese modern photography. This monograph consists of photographs of ships and architectures made by steel, such as bridges tanks and towers, based on his own sense of beauty, “a beauty of machinery,” derived directly from art critic (photo critic) Takaho Itagaki’s thought, using, for example, close-up and looking-up. Therefore, this work can be said as corroborated work of Horino and Itagaki. This work is as important as a monograph “Métal” by Germaine Krull in terms of “a beauty of machinery.”
[Quote: Wikipedia]

Like “Paris et la Seine” the book “Camera: Eye x Steel: Composition” is available in a limited edition as a facsimile reprint, too. The editors of the facsimile reprints are the photo historians Ryuichi Kaneko, responsible for several excellent exhibitions and publications at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Kotaro Iizawa a critic and publisher, who for example published (besides many other books on modern and contemporary photography) a 40 vol. series on Japanese photographers.
Kaneko and Iizawa did four other facsimile reprints since last year and only “Early Summer Nerves” was recognized in the photobook anthologies (in “Fotografia Publica” and “The Photobook, vol. 1″).

- Kiyoishi Koishi: Early Summer Nerves, (Shoka Shinkei), 1933.

The other three books by Kaneko and Iizawa which were ignored by the books on photobooks are:

- Ihee Kimura: Japan through a Leica, 1938

- Tampei Photography Club: Light, (Hikari), 1940

- Nakaji Yasui: The Photography Of Nakaji Yasui, 1942 (this is more a portfolio actually)

Some Contemporary Photography Books not Listed

Besides the missing Modern Photography books, some interesting photobooks from the last decade were ignored as well. Four books come into my mind immediately:

- Miyako Ishiuchi: 1947, 1990
This is a brilliant photographed and well printed conceptual book, showing the hands and feets of women born in 1947, the same year when Ishiuchi was born.

- Kyoichi Tsuzuki: Tokyo Style, 1993
A bestseller in Japan. A straight documentary book depicting apartments in Tokyo at the lower end of the condo market accompanied by short notes on the tenants of the places. This book gives for the first time a comprehensive view on the living situation and life style of many (most?) Japanese. It’s a complete contradiction to all coffee table books showing empty Zen-like living spaces by Tadao Ando at al..

(new version from 2003)

- Kikuji Kawada: Globe Theater, 1998
The self published book in a translucent plastic slipcase is beautifully designed and well printed and was only published in an edition of 550 copies. I contains three series: “Los Capriccios” (1969-1981), “The Last Cosmology” (1979-1997) and “Car Maniac” (1991-1998).

- Mika Ninagawa: Liquid Dreams, 2003
This book was published in two versions with a black and a white vinyl cover covered with lamé. Both covers have a round image with goldfishes, which are moving slightly as your gaze slides over the image.Mika Ninagawa has a well done homepage with her books and a selection of images from her books. For this book Mika photographed Goldfishes in strong, eccentric colours. The book is pure pop, and it’s art. This kind of photobook you will only find in Japan.

PS: I am sure that others will miss other books as well, some books might be more obvious while other books might only be known to specialists in Japan. A book which came into my mind after I finished my post is Jun Morinaga’s River, its Shadow of Shadows, 1978.

Also it might be very interesting to look into the publications produced in Manchukuo. Manchukuo was a nominally independent puppet state set up by Japan in Manchuria (Northeastern China) which existed from 1931 to 1945. Several Japanese photographers went there and some years ago I have seen some interestesting magazines published in connection with this episode of Japanese imperialism…

—
Recommended books:
Ann Tucker, et al.: The History of Japanese Photography
Fotografia Publica: Photography in Print 1919-1939
Andrew Roth: The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century
Martin Parr, Gerry Badger: The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1
Martin Parr, Gerry Badger: The Photobook: A History, Vol. 2

From October 2003 to February 2004 Hatakeyama photographed the sites and structures that were home to tens of thousands of workers for over a century. The series, which I have not seen yet, neither on the wall nor in the book with the same name published just recently by Nazraeli Press, is on display at Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo.

It seems that Hatakeyam kind of returned with the following series to a topic with which he ‘blasted’ into the Japanese photo scene in 1995, literally.

“Could you take a photograph of a building that is scheduled to be torn down?”
The request sounds like: “Could you take the portrait of a person who will die soon?”
Just as a portrait of a deceased person is needed for people to reminisce about that person, an architectural photograph is needed to reminisce about a building which no longer exists.
Another sense of nostalgia always comes to mind for the photographer who takes such a photograph; the nostalgia for the original role of photography,
“to serve to the memory of human beings,” requested simply of him. He does not know why, but it makes him feel nostalgia for this.

“Record” is always based on the premise of a vision that comes from the future.
The photograph is like a boat carried to the future endlessly even if the vision one sees comes from the past. I think as this way; “Record” belongs to the future, not to the past. Otherwise I cannot understand the reason why I always
have a feeling of hope on my fingertip when I release the shutter.
[Quote: Naoya Hatakeyama]

[Addendum:]
Currently Naoya Hatakeyama has another exhibition in Tokyo area:
“Two Mountains” together with the Swiss photographer Balthasar Burkhard. This is a commissioned work too about Swiss and Japanese mountains exhibited at the new constructed private Tokyo Art Museum (architecture by Tadao Ando).

all photos: Naoya Hatakeyama

———

Recommended books:
Naoya Hatakeyama: Zeche Westfalen I/ II Ahlen
Naoya Hatakeyama: Two Mountains