Scarce exhibition catalogue surveying the work of Czech Surrealist artists Jan and Eva Švankmajer, published to accompany a major retrospective in Japan in 2011. Eva Švankmajerová (1940 – 2005, b. Eva Dvořáková in Kostelec nad Černými lesy), was a renowned painter, ceramicist, and writer active in the Czech and Slovak Surrealist Group who's poetry and prose regularly appeared in the journal Analogon. Švankmajerová was married to the Surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (b. Prague, 1934) and collaborated on many of his award-winning animated masterpieces, including Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) and Otesánek (2000). Lavishly illustrated throughout, this catalogue includes chapters on Jan and Eva Švankmajer's independent and collaborative works, spanning painting, objects, collage, ceramics, poetry, graphics, and their highly acclaimed animated film works. Also includes Jan Švankmajer's collaboration with Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe. Includes detailed history, list of works and accompanying texts, alongside production insights and studio photography.

As New copy.

File under: Jan Svankmajer Eva Švankmajerová Jan Švankmajer Eikoh Hosoe Access / Japan Art Painting Drawing Film / Video Out-of-print / Rare Sculpture / Installation Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Surrealism

Le Sang et La Rose No. 1, 1968

1968

Le Sang et La Rose No. 1, 1968

1968, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 1 (1968) sets the scene perfectly, opening with Japanese author Yukio Mishima depicted as Saint Sebastian by photographer Kishin Shinoyama in a pictorial feature "Les Morts Masculines", a photographic homage to Georges Bataille that also features the photography of Eikoh Hosoe, Ikkō Narahara, Masahisa Fukase, and Osamu Hayasaki, with models including Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, actor Akira Mita, author Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, actor Jin Nakayama, playwright Jūrō Kara, and others. Other features include " All Japanese are Perverse" — stories by Japanese writers including Yukio Mishima, Taruho Inagaki, Yutaka Haniya, Shinji Sōya; Henry Miller's letters to Anais Nin; a colour gallery of artwork by Belgian painter Paul Delvaux; articles on Vampire fantasy in the arts (including many original illustrations; Witches (illustrated by James Ensor); Oriental Eros, Ancient Indian poetry; Kama Sutra; female bi-sexuality; the history of gay (Danshoku) theatre in Japan; the full-colour art gallery "Masturbation Machine", featuring avant-garde artists Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Masuo Ikeda, Setsu Nagasawa, Carlos Marchioli, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, Masakazu Horiuchi, Tadanori Yokoo, Koji Suzuki, Tommy Ungerer; the fully illustrated museum supplement "Pain and Pleasure : On Torture" by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history; pornographic stories by Guillaume Apollinaire and Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (who coined the term "Pornographer"); fiction by Pierre Morion (pseudo. André Pieyre de Mandiargues); critic Jin'ichi Uekusa on the controversial writings of Roger Peyrefitte, illustrations by Ernst, Bellmer, Labisse, Fini, Lam, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Good copy with some spine damage and tanning/wear.

File under: Max Ernst Léonor Fini Felix Labisse Wilfredo Lam Hans Bellmer Paul Delvaux Natsuyuki Nakanishi Masuo Ikeda Setsu Nagasawa Carlos Marchioli Kuniyoshi Kaneko Masakazu Horiuchi Tadanori Yokoo Koji Suzuki Tommy Ungerer Tatsumi Hijikata Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Eikoh Hosoe Ikkō Narahara Masahisa Fukase Osamu Hayasaki Kishin Shinoyama James Ensor Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Jin'ichi Uekusa Roger Peyrefitte Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Yutaka Haniya Shinji Sōya Henry Miller Suehiro Tanemura Guillaume Apollinaire Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne Jūrō Kara Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Fiction / Poetry Japanese Photography Occult / Esoterica Philosophy Photography Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

PROVOKE Complete Reprint of 3 Volumes

Koji TAKI, Takuma NAKAHIRA , Yutaka TAKANASHI, Takahiko OKADA, Daido MORIYAMA

2018

PROVOKE Complete Reprint of 3 Volumes
Koji TAKI, Takuma NAKAHIRA , Yutaka TAKANASHI, Takahiko OKADA, Daido MORIYAMA

2018, Japanese / English / Chinese
Softcover, 3 volumes plus supplement, printed plastic bag
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by NITESHA / Tokyo

$280.00 - In stock -

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First, quickly out-of-print, complete limited-edition facsimile of all three issues the ground-breaking Japanese photography magazine Provoke. The short-lived Provoke, founded in 1968 by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011), photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997), photographer Yutaka Takanashi, and later joined by Daido Moriyama, is nowadays recognized as a major contribution to postwar photography in Japan, featuring the country's finest representatives of protest photography, vanguard fine art and critical theory in only three issues ever published.

In 2018, marking the 50th year since Provoke had first appeared, this special edition was published by NITESHA, a secondhand bookshop in Tokyo who were fortunate to be able to purchase all three volumes of the original prints. Rather than merely putting them back on the market again for profit, they decided to make a reprint of these extremely rare and inaccessible issues that are currently only owned by a limited number of connoisseurs. Striving to stay as close to the original publications as possible, all three issues are accompanied by a supplementary volume containing all the original Japanese texts (essays, poetry, etc.) translated into both English and Chinese, including those by Takahiko Okada (excluded from Steidl's “The Japanese Box” reissue due to copyright issues). This facsimile reprint also maintains the original size of all of the images (unlike the cropped Steidl “The Japanese Box” reissue), making it the closest thing to the seldom seen originals.

Comes housed in the publisher's limited edition "Provoke" printed plastic bag, as first issued, making it a most complete copy of this book-set.

Provoke's goal was to mirror the complexities of Japanese society and its art world of the 1960s, a decade shaped by the country's first large-scale student protests. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought,” and each self-published issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. The movement yielded a wave of new books featuring innovative graphic design combined with photography: serialized imagery, gripping text-image combinations, dynamic cropping and the use of provocatively "poor" materials. The writings and images by Provoke's members - Taki, Nakahira, Okada, Takanashi and Moriyama - were suffused with the tactics developed by Japanese protest photographers such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Eikoh Hosoe and Shomei Tomatsu, who pointed at and criticized the mythologies of modern life. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke (a Japanese term meaning, literally, “rough, blurred and out-of-focus”) and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time and its influence cannot be overstated.

PROVOKE 1: Softcover, 68 pages, 21 x 21 cm
PROVOKE 2: Softcover (w. printed wrap-around obi strip), 110 pages, 24.2 x 18 cm
PROVOKE 3: Softcover, 110 pages, 24 x 18.4 cm.
PROVOKE Textbook (English and Chinese translations), 24 x 18.4 cm

As New. This edition is now out-of-print, further re-prints have been made.

File under: Takuma Nakahira Daido Moriyama Yutaka Takanashi Koji Taki Nobuyoshi Araki Eikoh Hosoe Shomei Tomatsu Gozo Yoshimasu Takahiko Okada Koji Taki NITESHA / Tokyo Art Theory / Essay Poetry Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Eros Counterculture Periodicals

PROVOKE

Between Protest and Performance - Photography in Japan 1960 / 1975

2016

PROVOKE
Between Protest and Performance - Photography in Japan 1960 / 1975

2016, English
Softcover, 680 pages, 190 x 250 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / fine
Published by Steidl / Göttingen

$300.00 - In stock -

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The short-lived Japanese magazine "Provoke," founded in 1968, is nowadays recognized as a major contribution to postwar photography in Japan, featuring the country's finest representatives of protest photography, vanguard fine art and critical theory in only three issues overall. The magazine's goal was to mirror the complexities of Japanese society and its art world of the 1960s, a decade shaped by the country's first large-scale student protests. The movement yielded a wave of new books featuring innovative graphic design combined with photography: serialized imagery, gripping text-image combinations, dynamic cropping and the use of provocatively "poor" materials. The writings and images by "Provoke"'s members-critic Koji Taki, poet Takahiko Okada, photographers Takuma Nakahira, Yakata Takanashi and Daido Moriyama-were suffused with the tactics developed by Japanese protest photographers such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Eikoh Hosoe and Shomei Tomatsu, who pointed at and criticized the mythologies of modern life.

This enormous, and long out-of-print "Provoke" book accompanies the first exhibition ever to be held on the magazine and its creators. Illuminating the various uses of photography in Japan at the time, the catalogue focuses on selected projects undertaken between 1960 and 1975 that offer a strongly interpretative account of currents in Japanese art and society at a moment of historical collapse and renewal.

Out of Print. As New.

File under: Daido Moriyama Eikoh Hosoe Nobuyoshi Araki Shomei Tomatsu Takuma Nakahira Yakata Takanashi Diane Dufour Pierre Hourquet Steidl / Göttingen Art Counterculture Japanese Photography Performance / Dance / Theater Periodicals Photography Out-of-print / Rare

Eikoh Hosoe

Human Body

1982

Eikoh Hosoe
Human Body

1982, Japanese
Hardcover (clothbound in dust jacket in heavy slipcase), 200 pages, 31 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Nippon Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS) / Japan

$550.00 - In stock -

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Rare first edition, first printing of Eikoh Hosoe's classic photo book “Human Body”, published by Nippon Geijutsu Shuppansha, Tokyo in 1982. A stunning collection duotone photogravures, “Human Body” is a gorgeously designed retrospective of Hosoe's inimitable nudes and includes work from his critically acclaimed "Man & Woman", "Embrace", "Killed by Roses", as well as many previously unpublished images including many shot in Yosemite and Arizona. Beautiful black cloth bound, de-bossed covers with dust-jacket housed in the original heavy publisher's printed slipcase. An absolute classic, and wonderful copy of one of Hosoe's scarcer books.

Eikoh Hosoe (Hosoe Eikō, born 18 March 1933 in Yonezawa, Yamagata) is a Japanese photographer and filmmaker who emerged in the experimental arts movement of post-World War II Japan. He is known for his psychologically charged images, often exploring subjects such as death, erotic obsession, and irrationality. Through his friendships and artistic collaborations he is linked with the writer Yukio Mishima and 1960s avant-garde artists such as the Butoh dancer Tatsumi Hijikata.

Very Good-Fine copy. Tiny few marks on book-block side-edge of coffee? Otherwise a perfect, preserved copy in original dust-jacket and slipcase with light shelf-wear.

File under: Eikoh Hosoe Nippon Geijutsu Shuppan (NGS) / Japan Eros Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography

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