Published in 2013, this set contains the books “Tokyo 1970 by Japanese Photographers 9” and “Tokyo 2020 by Japanese Photographers 9”, each published to accompany exhibitions of the same title held at Hillside Terrace in Tokyo in October and November 2013.
As the titles imply, “Tokyo 1970” and “Tokyo 2020” each represented specific eras in Japanese photography through the works of nine Tokyo-based photographers. The economic boom years of the 1970s as well as the social and cultural changes that followed are explored through selections from series by artists whose legacy is still felt in Japanese photography today: Taiji Arita (“First Born”), Eikoh Hosoe (“Simmon: A Private Landscape”), Daido Moriyama (“Farewell Photography”), Masatoshi Naito (“Tokyo”), Hajime Sawatari (“Kinky”), Issei Suda (“My Tokyo 100”), Yoshihiro Tatsuki (“A Fallen Angel”), Shuji Terayama (“Mysterious Guests”), and Katsumi Watanabe (“Story of the Shinjuku Thieves”).
“Tokyo 2020,” meanwhile,” features a snapshot of young and upcoming photographers who, in 2013, stood out for their new photographic approaches, visual styles, and ways of sharing their work. Many of the photographers whose early steps were collected here are still actively shaping the landscape of Japanese photography today: Maya Akashika (“Let’s Try!”), Yuji Hamada (“Stack”), Go Itami (“Study”), Kosuke (“Warning”), Yoshinori Mizutani (“This Woman”), Wataru Yamamoto (“Leaf of Electric Light”), Daisuke Yokota (“Nocturnes”), Kazuo Yoshida (“Air Blue / Sky Scape / Sheet Scape”), Yumiko Utsu (“Out of Ark”).
Each volume further includes two in-depth essays (written by Marc Feustel and Noi Sawaragi for “Tokyo 1970” and Hideto Fuse and Ivan Vartanian for “Tokyo 2020”), as well as artist statements and biographical information in Japanese and English.
