Book of the Day: Provoke - Complete Reprint of 3 Volumes
Our book(s) of the day is/are this lovely bagged set of facsimiles of the legendary Japanese magazine Provoke. As the publisher tells it: “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 created a strong impact inside and outside the photography world during that time. Today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.“ Photographic history, coming alive! (Nitesha, 2018-2024)