JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE HISTORY OF JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

Published on 01 September 2017

Words Fiona Mahon

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Iconic Japanese store BEAMS have set up shop at Harvey Nichols in London for 6 weeks, with a beautifully curated selection of fashion, homeware and books. Celebrating the rich culture of Japanese photography, independent publishing house MACK will be showcasing a selection of limited edition photography books.

Bringing together rare and celebrated works by Japanese photographers from Kikuji Kawada to Mayumi Hosokura, the exclusive edit promises an unparalleled insight into the cultural life of Japan, past and present.

Here’s a preview of what’s on offer.

MASAHISA FUKASE – RAVENS, £75

Regarded as one of the most important photobooks in the history of photography, Ravens by Masahisa Fukase is a haunting allegory of love and loss in postwar Japan. First published in 1986, the two subsequent editions were both short print runs that sold out immediately. This long-awaited bilingual reprint of the first edition contains a new text by founder of the Masahisa Fukase Archives, Tomo Kosuga, which locates Ravens in Fukase’s wider work and life, and is illustrated with newfound photographs and drawings.

TAKASHI HOMMA – THE NARCISSISTIC CITY, £45

Like a phastasmic city, this book brings together images of New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles made with a camera obscura – a lens-less pinhole device invented in the 16th century. Leading contemporary Japanese photographer Takashi Homma builds a mirage of urban landscapes with pages that fold outwards like a concertina, designed to pull us into a dark chamber of hazy reflections.

MAYUMI HOSOKURA – TRANSPARENCY IS A NEW MYSTERY, £25

Hailed as one to watch among a new generation of Japanese photographers, Mayumi Hosokura explores the mysterious bond between youth, beauty, nature and humans in this stunning, monochrome photobook. Bringing together softly erotic photographs of the nude body with mesmerising images of salt crystals, Hosokura traces dream-like connections between the two curious forms.

KIKUJI KAWADA – THE LAST COSMOLOGY, £45

The pioneering Japanese photographer Kikuji Kawada grew up in the shadow of the Hiroshima and Nagaski bombings. His dark, impressionistic images map the catastrophe of human folly and the mystery of the cosmos. In The Last Cosmology, Kawada photographs the dramas of the sky – electrical storms, fleeting meteorites, solar eclipses and coiling cloud-patterns. Captured between 1980 and 2000, the work was inspired by the apocalyptic skyscapes of the expressionist painter Emil Nolde and forms part of Kawada’s ‘The Catastophe Trology’.

The Harvey Nichols x BEAMS TOKYOJIN pop-up will run from 31 August for 6 weeks in the Project 109 concept space on the Lower Ground Menswear Floor.  You can also shop an edit of the pieces on offer from Harvey Nichols online.