Photobooks of 2016: Maki
Shinjuku Lost Child By Seung-Woo Yang
This is one of the most astonishing photobooks I ever seen about Shinjuku and more precisely about Kabukicho area in Tokyo. No cheat, no lie, only the real life without filters, strong pictures by this unavoidable and reserved Korean photographers living in Japan who went until sleeping on cardboard on the streets as an homeless to take those pictures…
Provoke – Between protest and performance by various photographers
Long awaited photobook about the late 60’s magazine Provoke and its creators, also focuses on its historical context. An affordable and comprehensive book with 600 pictures and many texts about japanese art and society at a moment of historical collapse and renewal. A must have for those interested by postwar photography in Japan.
Odasaku by Daido Moriyama
Designer and publisher Satochi Machiguchi publishes each year a book, fruit of the collaboration between Daido Moriyama and him. After last year’s magnificent success of “Dazai” this little gem does not deviate from the rule. As always with Machiguchi we are in the presence of the best in design, binding and creativity in addition to the captivating photos of Osaka by Moriyama and the dark and half autobiographical story At the Horse Races (1946) by Osaka’s emblematic writer Oda Sakunosuke.
Undergrowth by Shoko Hashimoto
Immersion in the rural Japan. Poetic and deep by one of the Japanese photographers who knows the subject best. Author of the astonishing photobook “Goze” a fascinating, lively document and a reference of a past lifestyle published in 1974 by Norasha or more recently the book Nishiyama Onsen which should follow the path of “Goze” in the future…
So Long China by Patrick Zachmann
The book has just won the Nadar price 2016 and for good reason as it summarize a 30-year-old photographic story, that of Zachmann and China. 350 b&w and color photographs, recalling the travel diary punctuated with excerpts from texts of the logbook kept by Patrick Zachmann during his travels, which provide additional illumination to these images but also on the work of the photographer in a society where censorship and manipulation of the regime reign.
Namekuji Soshi by Masahito Agake
Beautifully designed Namekuji Soshi is Masahito Agake’s 2nd photo book, strengthening its position as one of the most interesting japanese emergent photographers.
Anouk Deville by Anouk Deville
Anouk Deville gives us here her life story without detours. A photographic diary whose substance is more convincing than the book itself. French photographer, she started photography at 15 years old when she first saw a photobook by Nan Goldin. This first photobook focus on her emotional life through a photographic autobiography of the suffering and enjoyment of body, from sexuality and physical or psychological mutilation until having a baby and being a mother… A quest for identity.
One year, one woman by Mark Pearson
We can consider this book as the continuation of the tabloid “Far East Obsession” the photographer published last year in collaboration with Chris Shaw and Tokyo Rumando. Here again Tokyo Rumando is the main subject as during the span of a year, the paths of photographer and galerist Mark Pearson and self-portrait female artist Tokyo Rumando lead them to share the same four cities at the same time.
Hikigane by Rody Shimazaki
The debut work of former punk rock photographer Rody Shimazaki together with chronicle written by rapper artist ECD. Shimazaki recorded the SEALDS demonstrations at the National Diet building, anti-hate marches and similar nonviolent grass-roots protests in 131 photos. A photobook in which both artists capture the spirit in the streets of 21st century Japan.
Mitsutoshi Hanaga by Mitsutoshi Hanaga
A massive book of 1024 pages which covers the life of the photographer and his involvement in the underground scene and the protest that makes this book an important document about Japan from 1960 to 1989.
North Point by Hiroyasu Nakai
Another book designed by Satochi Machiguchi. The images were selected by Daido Moriyama. Hyroyasu Nakai after participating in Eikoh Hosoe photo school in 1976, became a member of CAMP (photo group and gallery headed by Moriyama). His perspectives of his home town Hachinohe City in Aomori are beautifully expressed in this book.
Ten Disciples by Tsutomu Yamagata
Pictures of the spa of Tamagawa, the valley filled with radioactive rocks and high ground temperature where cancer patients gather in the mountains of Akita prefecture in Japan. Yamagata saw a representation of the Japanese view of life and death within this valley and the people diagnosed with cancer that went there for a cure.
Daisuke Yokota Matter/Burn out
‘MATTER / BURN OUT’ is an extension of Yokota’s work ‘Matter’ which was exhibited in Xiamen in 2015, 70 years after the war between Japan and China. Once the exhibition had come to a close, the work was burnt in the vacant space in the area. This ‘burn out’ process was documented in 4,000 photographs, whereby the data was processed, manipulated and revived to form a brand new, large scale work called “MATTER / BURN OUT”, and edited to this new book which for me is largely the best he has published in recent years.
Tokyo 20002002 by Morten Andersen
Book and catalog of his exhibition at the in)(between gallery in Paris (nov. 2016). Black and White pictures from the two trips he did to Japan Between 2000 and 2002. Interesting editing.
And 3 reissues from 2016 that are worth the effort :
Raised by Wolves, the bootleg by Jim Goldberg
Often considered Goldberg’s seminal project, Raised by Wolves combines ten years of original photographs, text, and other illustrative elements (home movie stills, snapshots, drawings, diary entries, and images of discarded belongings) to document the lives of runaway teenagers in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The book quickly became a classic in the photobook canon and, thus, the original is essentially unavailable. In the spirit of Tweeky Dave, Goldberg is releasing a xerox style bootleg version of the book with numerous surprises inserted by the artist. At the same size as the original, the re-issue features 320 color and black and white pages, perfect bound, with a color softcover.
Sentimental Journey (Senchimentaru na tabi) by Nobuyoshi Araki
45 years after his honeymoon holiday with wife Yoko
The limited reprint of a legendary photo book. Self-published in 1971 (Tokyo – edition of 1000) this is the long awaited and faithful reproduction of Araki’s seminal photobook “Sentimental Journey”. Araki’s true photographic debut. A photobook classic in which we find a photographic diary of his honeymoon with his wife Yoko.
ADIEU A X by Takuma Nakahira
This is the third edition of the original 1989 publication to be released by Kawade Shobo Shinsha. The celebrated works by the iconic photographer is once again made available through this reprint allowing viewers to further engage with Nakahira’s photographic perspective within a world which sought to break the boundaries between sign and meanings through the photographic gaze of both subject and photographer.
Maki studied photography in the beginning of the 80′s. He is a photographer born and currently living in Marseille (France) and just published “GÛYU – Allegory” (Timeshow Press) a photobook featuring pictures from his series “Japan Somewhere”. He is currently working on his next publication. As a publisher he created the mini photobooks collection Média Immédiat (Ed Templeton, Onaka Koji, Morten Andersen…). He also runs the “Photobook Collectors” page on facebook in which he introduce the photobooks he likes and recommends.
Images – top: North Point by Hiroyasu Nakai, below: Namekuji Soshi by Masahito Agake
