File 3 "Circulation: Date, Place, Events" by Takuma Nakahira, 2012

Takuma Nakahira is a well known for being both critical of his own work and an influential member of the provoke movement along with Daido Moriyama and Yutaka Takanashi. Nakahira notably created the images for an installation at the Seventh Paris Biennale in 1971 during his stay in France.  Nakahira deliberately avoided reflecting his idea to his work, instead, he decided to document anything he encountered and install it on the same day.  Nakahira later recounted that this body of work became a turning point of his photographic methodology for attaining to eternity and erasing his own self from his work.

Compared to his Provoke work marked with high contrast, tilted angles, and blurry effects (see “Foe a Language to Come", Fudosha, 1970), “Circulation: Date, Place, Event” looks less intense and internal and it successfully hid his own subjective mind.  However, it can’t simply be regarded as the casual snap-post practice prevalent in our digitally saturated society.  Here, his critical thoughts are still kept deep in his mind and his serious observation is not about the city itself but instead a version of himself who painfully and urgently sought for a new expression.

Needless to say, only through a publisher’s ability to orchestrate the whole process, can his project finally see the light and reach out a wider audience.  The designer, Kazunari Hattori’s choice of a simple font and spine treatment, and same image size throughout the book effectively remind the viewers of Nakahira’s tenaciousness to keep to his own principles as a young artist.  The beautiful printing was made possibly by sincere dedication and respect by an artist, Osamu Kanemura (whose well known work is “Spider’s Strategy”, 2001, Osiris, another masterpiece of history of Japanese photography).  “Circulation: Date, Place, Event” is one of the most successful publications which increases the ‘book’s own life’ long after the artist’s original intent.

BOOK INFO:

Title: Circulation: Date, Place, Events

Artist: Takuma Nakahira

Design: Kazunari Hattori

Publisher, Osiris

Date: 2012

Size: 5¾x8¼ inch

Binding/page/printing:  320 pp, 257 images in black and white, softcover with slipcase

ISBN: 978-4-905254-01-0

ARTIST INFO:

Takuma Nakahira

Japanese b. 1938

Takuma Nakahira was born in 1938 in Tokyo, and lives and works in Yokohama.  Upon his graduation from the University of Foreign Studies with a bachelor's degree in Spanish in 1963, Nakahira began his career as the editor of the new-left magazine, Contemporary Eye. That same year, he met photographer Shomei Tomatsu, whose association later encouraged Nakahira to become a professional photographer.  In 1968, Nakahira teamed up with Yutaka Takanashi, Takahiro Oakada and Koji Taki (Daido Moriyama joined later for its 2nd issue) and published the magazine provoke.  Nakahira wrote his critical essays in art and photography, although it lasted for only two years.

In 1969, Nakahira participated in the Sixth Paris Biennale, and in the same year he received the Newcomer Award from the Japanese Photography Critics’ Association. His publications include For A Language to Come (Fūdosha, 1970), Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary?, (Shōbunsha, 1973),  A New Gaze (Shōbunsha, 1983), Adieu à X (Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1989), Hysteric Six, Nakahira Takuma. (Hysteric Glamour, 2002), Degree Zero: Yokohama, (Osiris, 2003), For A Language to Come, (Osiris, 2010), Toshi fūkei zukan, (Getsuyōsha, 2011), Takuma Nakahira Documentary (Akio Nagasawa Publishing, 2011), Circulation: Date, Place, Events (Osiris, 2012) and Gecko (Little Big Man with Takashi Homma, 2013).

The numerous exhibitions held at the Yokohama Museum of Art (2003), ShugoArts in Tokyo; The Art Gallery of Chukyo University in Nagoya; and the Hachinohe City Museum of Art.