Provoke the Age, the Acts Experimental Japanese Photography in Dialogue with the HKIPF

Press Release 19 Sep 2018 For Immediate Release

“PROVOKE: Provocative Material for Thought - the short-lived photography journal… blazed its trail across the Tokyo cultural scene in those years.”

~Matthew S. Witkovsky Sandor Chair of Photography, The Art Institute of Chicago

The legendary photography magazine PROVOKE of post-World War II Japan, that shook the art world and subverted traditional aesthetics of photography with its are, bure, boke (“grainy, blurry, out of focus”) B/W images will be re-presented – after 50 years – in an historic exhibition and publication launch at the 2018 Hong Kong International Photo Festival (HKIPF) from October to December this year.

Under the theme “PROVOKE & Beyond”, HKIPF 2018 presents two major exhibitions: the group show “Provoke the age, the acts: 50 years’ quest for a language to come” curated by Tokyo-based curator NAGASAWA Akio, and the eponymous solo exhibition “Nakahira Takuma” curated by Taipei-based curator HUANG Yaji.

“Presented in two distinct exhibition venues and designs, the exhibitions take the Festival from Shek Kip Mei in the Kowloon Peninsula to Central District in the heart of the city,” says LAU Ching-ping, Chair of the current edition of HKIPF.

“Provoke the age, the acts: 50 years’ quest for a language to come” group exhibition

The headline exhibition “Provoke the age, the acts: 50 years’ quest for a language to come” spotlights the photography magazine dojin-shi PROVOKE, founded in 1968.

At its inception, the magazine was curated by art and photography critic TAKI Koji and photographer NAKAHIRA Takuma. The poet OKADA Takahiko and photographer TAKANASHI Yukata were later invited to join as dojin members, with MORIYAMA Daido also joining from the second issue. Despite its closure after only the third issue, the

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PROVOKE became an icon in the Japanese post-World War II art world, a cornerstone photography publication.

NAGASAWA Akio, the curator of this newly designed exhibition for HKIPF, has collaborated with Moriyama Daido and other photographers of his generation on various occasions. He guides the audience through the Tokyo of the PROVOKE era, a shifting metropolis in the midst of global upheaval, through the eyes of a dozen master photographers / art collective who were emerging and proliic artists during the 1960s and 1970s. These artists include Nakahira Takuma, Moriyama Daido, Tomatsu Shomei, Sawatari Hajime, Suda Issei, and Hamaguchi Takashi who passed away last month.

Takuma Nakahira may be the most important Japanese photographer you have never heard of. ~Franz Prichard, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University

“Nakahira Takuma” - First solo exhibition in Hong Kong

“Nakahira Takuma”, the irst solo exhibition in Hong Kong of work by the late artist NAKAHIRA Takuma (1938-2015), is displayed across two levels of the exhibition venue Hart Projects @ H CODE as a way to examine various phases of Nakahira’s creative practice from the 1960s to 2015: from PROVOKE to For a Language to Come (1968-1970); from ‘Circulation’ to ‘Overlow’ (1971-1974), and ultimately to his colour series (2003-2015).. It illuminates the artist’s explorations in photographic thinking and practice, and his shift from B/W to colour photography in a chronological context.

Curator HUANG Yaji, director of the gallery Each Modern which represents the estate of Nakahira Takuma in the Greater China region, says: “Throughout his life, Nakahira Takuma engaged himself in a relentless questioning about images, language and meaning. His thinking and photographic practice eventually culminated in colour photography that exempliies the creation of ‘a view point devoid of subjectivity’. It stands in stark contrast to the directions taken by most photographers or theories of photography—particularly the mainstream perspectives on photography in the West.”

Reprint of PROVOKE and inaugural Satellite Exhibitions

PROVOKE encapsulated the social atmosphere of the late 1960s, challenged existing photographic forms and frameworks, and continues to have a profound inluence on

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Japanese photographers today. With the publication’s legacy still resounding, the HKIPF exhibition coincides with the launch of the 2018 reprint of PROVOKE, curated as the 50th anniversary commemorative edition of the magazine. Published by the Japanese vintage book store NITESHA, the special edition includes a complete reprint of the three original issues in 287 pages, with a newly produced appendix and translations of the Japanese texts in traditional Chinese and English.

Beyond the spotlight on legendary artists and major exhibitions, the Festival also encompasses everyday aesthetics and community experience. After initiating an open call for exhibition proposals, HKIPF 2018 is thrilled to present the inaugural “Satellite Exhibitions” - with more than 20 visual practitioners from different ields and backgrounds presenting exhibitions across Hong Kong. The platform easily enables exchange between photographic artists and the general public.

HKIPF 2018 exhibitions also include “Time / Space: Brief as Photos - Dialogue between Joseph Fung and his Contemporaries”, a retrospective exhibition of renowned Hong Kong photographer Joseph FUNG Hon Kee, and “B/W Nostalgia”, a showcase of the artistry of traditional darkroom techniques. The two exhibitions will be held at the Pao Galleries, Hong Kong Arts Centre from 3-19 December, and the Exhibition Gallery at Hong Kong Central Library from 23-27 November respectively. Both venues are open daily, with free entry.

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Appendix｜PROVOKE & Beyond Exhibition Activities｜

MAIN EXHIBITIONS

25.10-2.12.2018 “PROVOKE the age, the acts, 50 years’ quest for a language L0 & L1 Galleries, JCCAC, to come” 30 Pak Tin St., Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

2-27.11.2018 “Nakahira Takuma" self-titled solo exhibition HART Projects @ H CODE, 45 Pottinger St., Central

12nn - 8pm, daily

EXHIBITION ACTIVITIES

2.30-4.30pm, 27.10.2018 “PROVOKE the age, the acts, 50 years’ quest for a language Central Courtyard, JCCAC, to come” Curator Talk L0 & L1 Galleries, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin St., Shek Kip Mei, Speaker: NAGASAWA Akio, curator & director of Akio Kowloon Nagasawa Gallery, Tokyo Guest-in-dialogue: Dustin Shum, advisor to the exhibition

7.30-8.30pm, 2.11.2018 “Nakahira Takuma” Curator Talk HART Projects @ H CODE, 45 Pottinger St., Central Speaker: HUANG Yaji, curator & director of Each Modern, Taipei

7.30-9pm, 8.11.2018 Special Talk Decoding PROVOKE Room CPD-LG.18, LG/F, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong

Speaker: IIZAWA Kotaro, art critic and photography historian Moderator: Isabella Tam, Associate Curator, Visual Art, M+

8.30-9.30pm, 17.11.2018 Discussion Behind the Scenes: L2 Terrace, JCCAC, L0 & L1 Reprinting PROVOKE Galleries, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin St., Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon

Speakers: Amanda LO Ling-Ning and HIGASHIKATA Akira, co-founders of the Japanese vintage bookstore and publisher, Nitesha

3, 10, 17, & 24.11.2018 (time Special Screenings Nakahira Takuma HART Projects @ H CODE, tbc) documentary "Extremely 45 Pottinger St., Central Good Landscapes” (2004)

Directed by HOMMA Takisha In Japanese with English subtitles

2.30-5pm, 24.11.2018 Workshop Beyond the Record: L4-03A, JCCAC, 30 Pak Tin Workshop On Protest St., Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon Photography

Facilitator: Terry NG Hong Hei, Hong Kong photographer

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For details, please visit the HKIPF website HKIPF.ORG.HK or Facebook Page @HKIPF.HKPCA. For enquiry, please phone +852 2777 0955 or email [email protected].

PRESS IMAGES

Hamaguchi Takashi｜August 7, 1977, Narita Demonstration, Narita, Chiba｜1977 / 1978 ｜ Silver gelatin print

In 1966, the development plan for the Narita International Airport was made public, and the planned demolition of the villages of Sanrizuka and Shibayama was met with intense opposition from nearby farmers. Students also took part in national protests, some of which erupted into riots. HAMAGUCHI Takashi spent 12 years documenting the Sanrizuka Struggle, which was published as The Shudders of Narita Airport (1978).

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Hosoe Eikoh ｜Ordeal by Roses＃32 ｜1961 ｜Silver gelatin print

In 1959, HOSOE Eikoh established the photography cooperative VIVO with the likes of KAWADA Kikuji, TOMATSU Shomei and NARAHRA Ikko. Art critic IIZAWA Korato called the initiative a “prime example” of the way Japanese photographers "confront head-on the transformation of modern Japanese society.”

In 1961, Hosoe made a series of semi-nude portraits of the controversial writer MISHIMA Yukio, then 36. A depiction of Mishima’s aesthetic world at his marble house, the series was published as Barakei (Ordeal by Roses) in 1963, one of the most intriguing photo books of the twentieth century.

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Moriyama Daido｜SCANDULOUS ｜1969-2016｜Silkscreen on canvas

Throughout 1969, the year he joined PROVOKE, Moriyama published a portfolio in each issue of the monthly magazine Asahi Camera, collectively called Akushidento (Accident), in which he tested various types of “accidental” imagery: appropriated images, pictures of traumatic events, voyeurism. By claiming that the rephotographed images as his own, Moriyama expressed a wish to stretch the term “document” to creative purposes and “attack” on the concept of photography as an art of aesthetic privilege.

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Nakahira Takuma｜Circulation: Date, Place, Events｜1971｜Silver gelatin print, printed in 2012

In 1971, NAKAHIRA Takuma participated in the Paris Biennale. Rather than contributing existing images, he preferred ‘live’ art: “Circulation: Date, Place, Event” was his daily routine of photographing Parisian life, developing the ilm in the darkroom, making enlargements, and then displaying the prints, often still wet from the washing process, at his Biennale venue in the evenings of the exhibition period. The evolving photo installation has been called “a performance piece” by scholar Matthew Witkovsky, Sandor Chair of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1973, Nakahira burned all of his negatives and prints. This is the sole surviving body of work from the PROVOKE era.

MEDIA CONTACT Luka Wong | [email protected] | +852 6301 6569

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