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Provoke: Complete Reprint of 3 Volumes
2018 marks the 50th year since Provoke had first been published.
Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought”, and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. After releasing the second and third issue with Daido Moriyama as a subsequent member, the group broke up with their last publication First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty – an overview edition of the three issues. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time. However, today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.
Provoke has challenged existing photographic conventions and posed fundamental questions of visual perception, in the midst of the social and political upheaval during the late sixties. Now the world is gradually recognizing and re-examining its significance in a multitude of contexts.
Published as part of The Japanese Box: Facsimile Reprint of Six Rare Photographic Publications of the Provoke Era*, Provoke‘s facsimile reprint has its photographic images cropped approximately 3 mm from the edges for bookbinding purposes. The reprint also does not include texts by Takahiko Okada due to copyright reasons. Provoke Complete Reprint by NITESHA maintains the original size of the images and includes all original texts, along with the ones by Takahiko Okada. In addition, the volumes will be accompanied by complete English and Chinese translations of the original Japanese texts as a booklet.
Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members. The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought”, and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. After releasing the second and third issue with Daido Moriyama as a subsequent member, the group broke up with their last publication First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty – an overview edition of the three issues. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time. However, today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.
Provoke has challenged existing photographic conventions and posed fundamental questions of visual perception, in the midst of the social and political upheaval during the late sixties. Now the world is gradually recognizing and re-examining its significance in a multitude of contexts.
Published as part of The Japanese Box: Facsimile Reprint of Six Rare Photographic Publications of the Provoke Era*, Provoke‘s facsimile reprint has its photographic images cropped approximately 3 mm from the edges for bookbinding purposes. The reprint also does not include texts by Takahiko Okada due to copyright reasons. Provoke Complete Reprint by NITESHA maintains the original size of the images and includes all original texts, along with the ones by Takahiko Okada. In addition, the volumes will be accompanied by complete English and Chinese translations of the original Japanese texts as a booklet.
- GenresPhotography
Paperback
Published October 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 1, 2025
It’s a shame, this should be 5 stars but the translation and editing (or lack thereof) is pretty horrible, especially for such a work that is often dense as hell where even small translation errors can be terminally distracting. Sure, I can’t say for sure it’s the translation and not the actual work that is unclear at times, but I’ve also read many translated works without ever questioning the rhythm of the text. If they ever do another reprint, I hope they hire a single editor.
Aside from that, this feels like an essential for not just photographers, but for any artist keen to the perversions that capitalism imparts on the human spirit. While this is certainly an anti capitalist and, in many ways, a Marxist project (which I was unaware of when I heard of this and was elated to learn once I dove in), it transcends (or attempts to transcend) the political alone and focuses on the search for a more complete and true consciousness with the understanding that capitalism is actively changing how, and if, that can be achieved. The creation of art, to my understanding of this work, is related to this search - not essential to it - insofar as the process by which one creates honest art brushes against the mechanisms of reaching a more “true” consciousness. Maybe I’m slightly off base, but that’s what I got out of at least the first issue, which is very, very dense.
The photos of the first issue were a great introduction to the project. Kōji Taki was an early standout to me, although I felt the limits of his project, while essential to anchoring of this first issue of PROVOKE in real, material struggle, left me wanting for more from him (which I certainly got in later issues). Yutaka Takanashi had a more subtle showing in this one, although my favorite photo of the issue was his very unsubtle shot of the couple holding a stuffed bear together and looking away from each other. While Takanashi felt focused on the creeping of industry into the natural world in a literal way, Takuma Nakahira took a more metaphorical approach - displaying an admirable understanding and command of darkness and shadow in his images that materialized from unease to horror across his work here.
The second issue was a bit more accessible and was a themed on sex and fetishism, specifically how capitalism is a fetishizing force. The photography here was a bit more plainly connected thematically, with the notable inclusion of work from Daidō Moriyama. Nakahira kicks things off this time with some shadowed are bure boke works that felt like commentary on the auras that objects impart to the world - or rather, the auras that we project onto them. Moriyama debuts in PROVOKE next with a collection of portraits seemingly all taken of the same person(s?) in the same room over the course of some given time. What struck me most about his contribution here was how they felt to instill an unease in me, only to question me why I was feeling that way in the company of the human figure. Takanashi’s work in this issue struck me as slightly uninspired and verging on vanity, but left me wondering if I was missing something that he could plainly see. Taki, however, brought forth a venerable collection of works here - well curated, organized, and produced.
PROVOKE 3 was the least textually dense of the collection, and the most readily relevant to photography as an art form. Takanashi, on the heels of what I thought was a disappointing showing (in my personal opinion) from the last issue, blew me away in this one with some ghostly, otherworldly photographs. Taki outdid himself yet again to follow up, with a collection of tight portraits that were arranged doubled up together mostly - one set of which possibly affected me the most of any photos in these issues. Moriyama followed that with a statement on what seems to be the matrices of capitalist consumption in an extremely contrasted style. These I liked, but they felt more like a study to me in ways. Finally, Nakahira rounds things out with what feels like a masterful synthesis of his specific slant on the are bure boke formula, although I do feel some of Takanashi’s best in this issue affected me more strongly in this way.
All in all, get this or borrow it from me if you are interested in any art - more so photography.
Aside from that, this feels like an essential for not just photographers, but for any artist keen to the perversions that capitalism imparts on the human spirit. While this is certainly an anti capitalist and, in many ways, a Marxist project (which I was unaware of when I heard of this and was elated to learn once I dove in), it transcends (or attempts to transcend) the political alone and focuses on the search for a more complete and true consciousness with the understanding that capitalism is actively changing how, and if, that can be achieved. The creation of art, to my understanding of this work, is related to this search - not essential to it - insofar as the process by which one creates honest art brushes against the mechanisms of reaching a more “true” consciousness. Maybe I’m slightly off base, but that’s what I got out of at least the first issue, which is very, very dense.
The photos of the first issue were a great introduction to the project. Kōji Taki was an early standout to me, although I felt the limits of his project, while essential to anchoring of this first issue of PROVOKE in real, material struggle, left me wanting for more from him (which I certainly got in later issues). Yutaka Takanashi had a more subtle showing in this one, although my favorite photo of the issue was his very unsubtle shot of the couple holding a stuffed bear together and looking away from each other. While Takanashi felt focused on the creeping of industry into the natural world in a literal way, Takuma Nakahira took a more metaphorical approach - displaying an admirable understanding and command of darkness and shadow in his images that materialized from unease to horror across his work here.
The second issue was a bit more accessible and was a themed on sex and fetishism, specifically how capitalism is a fetishizing force. The photography here was a bit more plainly connected thematically, with the notable inclusion of work from Daidō Moriyama. Nakahira kicks things off this time with some shadowed are bure boke works that felt like commentary on the auras that objects impart to the world - or rather, the auras that we project onto them. Moriyama debuts in PROVOKE next with a collection of portraits seemingly all taken of the same person(s?) in the same room over the course of some given time. What struck me most about his contribution here was how they felt to instill an unease in me, only to question me why I was feeling that way in the company of the human figure. Takanashi’s work in this issue struck me as slightly uninspired and verging on vanity, but left me wondering if I was missing something that he could plainly see. Taki, however, brought forth a venerable collection of works here - well curated, organized, and produced.
PROVOKE 3 was the least textually dense of the collection, and the most readily relevant to photography as an art form. Takanashi, on the heels of what I thought was a disappointing showing (in my personal opinion) from the last issue, blew me away in this one with some ghostly, otherworldly photographs. Taki outdid himself yet again to follow up, with a collection of tight portraits that were arranged doubled up together mostly - one set of which possibly affected me the most of any photos in these issues. Moriyama followed that with a statement on what seems to be the matrices of capitalist consumption in an extremely contrasted style. These I liked, but they felt more like a study to me in ways. Finally, Nakahira rounds things out with what feels like a masterful synthesis of his specific slant on the are bure boke formula, although I do feel some of Takanashi’s best in this issue affected me more strongly in this way.
All in all, get this or borrow it from me if you are interested in any art - more so photography.
Displaying 1 of 1 review