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Spread from Provoke 3 (1969)

Photobooks: Provoke

13 rooms in Artist and Society

  • Pacita Abad
  • A view from São Paulo: Abstraction and Society
  • Civil War
  • Xiyadie
  • Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
  • Photobooks: Provoke
  • Joseph Beuys and Vlassis Caniaris
  • Tourmaline
  • Witnesses
  • Josef Koudelka
  • Farah Al Qasimi
  • Wael Shawky
  • A Year in Art: 2050

Explore the Provoke movement, which revolutionised photography both inside and outside Japan

Following the Second World War, photography played an important role in the development of a new Japanese identity. At the heart of this exploration was the photographic magazine Provoke, created by Japanese photographers Nakahira Takuma, Takanashi Yutaka and Moriyama Daido, and art critics Taki Koji and Okada Takahiro. They released three issues between 1968 and 1969 and a book in 1970. Despite this relatively small output, Provoke is a significant milestone in photographic history.

The Provoke photographers used cameras to explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history after the Second World War, engaging with the sudden transformations of urban space in Japan in the 1960s. They developed the are-bure-boke (rough, blurred, out-of-focus) aesthetic, at the time a new language for photography. The blurred, shaky nature of their images reveals the presence of the photographer as they moved through the city, marking a shift from objective documentary towards the more subjective viewpoint of the photographer.

This display brings together Provoke magazines with photobooks and original prints by those associated with the movement.

Read more

Tate Modern
Natalie Bell Building Level 2 West
Room 6

Getting Here

Ongoing

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Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

1/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

2/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

3/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

4/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

5/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

6/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

7/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

8/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

9/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Miyako Ishiuchi, Yokosuka Story  1977

Yokosuka Story 1977, by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi, comprises forty vintage black and white prints which are typically displayed in a large grid. As the title suggests, the work depicts the town of Yokosuka, a small port in Japan where Ishiuchi grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, when the town was the site of a large American naval base. In these years of military occupation the town was infiltrated by American culture and in turn the visual landscape reflected this struggle between local and foreign, past and present and the uncertainty of Japan’s future identity. Like other slightly older Japanese photographers associated with the ‘Provoke’ movement, such as Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama, with whom she worked, Ishiuchi was part of the post-war generation who used their cameras to record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history. The Provoke movement experimented with photographic techniques in order to offer a more subjective and radical vision of society in Japan post-Hiroshima, focusing on the alienation and disaffection characterising urban life.

10/10
artworks in Photobooks: Provoke

More on this artwork

Art in this room

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977
P80610: Yokosuka Story
Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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Miyako Ishiuchi Yokosuka Story 1977

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