13 rooms in Artist and Society
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.
Art in this room
Sorry, no image available
Sorry, no image available
Sorry, no image available
Sorry, no image available
Sorry, no image available
You've viewed 6/10 artworks
You've viewed 10/10 artworks