Provoke (magazine)

Provoke (Purovōku, プロヴォーク), with its subtitle of Provocative Materials for Thought[n 1] (Shisō no tame no chōhatsuteki shiryō 思想のための挑発的資料), was an experimental small press Japanese photography magazine founded by the collective of photographers Yutaka Takanashi and Takuma Nakahira, critic Kōji Taki, and writer Takahiko Okada in 1968.[1][2][3][4][5] Daidō Moriyama joined with the second issue.[1] Provoke was "a platform for a new photographic expression",[6] "to free photography from subservience to the language of words",[1] "that stood in opposition to the photography establishment".[6] It has been described as having "lasted for only three issues, but had a profound effect upon Japanese photography in the 1970s and 80s"[7] and "spread a completely new idea of photography in Japan."[5] It was a quarterly magazine that also included poetry, criticism and radical photographic theory.

Details

The three issues of Provoke magazine were published on 1 November 1968, and 10 March and 10 August 1969, each in an edition of 1,000 copies.

The Provoke manifesto declared that visual images cannot completely represent an idea as words can, yet photographs can provoke language and ideas, "resulting in a new language and in new meanings";[1] the photographer can capture what cannot be expressed in words, presenting photographs as "documents" for others to read, hence Provoke's "provocative materials for thought" subtitle.[1] The visual style of the photographs in Provoke has been said to be, in Japanese, 'are-bure-boke', translated as 'grainy/rough, blurry, out-of-focus',[2][3] a style already found in mainstream magazines such as Camera Mainichi. There were other comparable radical magazines and groups at the time including Geribara 5, which published three books.

On 31 March 1970 the collective published the book 4. Mazu tashikarashisa no sekai o suterō: Shashin to gengo no shisō (First Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty: Thoughts on Photography and Language),[n 2] through Tabata Shoten. A review of the group's activity,[6] it is regarded as the Provoke No. 4 that is mentioned in No. 3.[1] It contains photographs by Moriyama, Nakahira, Takanashi and Taki and text by Michie Amano, Nakahira, Okada and Taki.

Critic Gerry Badger has written that the "legendary Japanese magazine, Provoke, lasted for only three issues, but had a profound effect upon Japanese photography in the 1970s and 80s".[7]

All three issues of Provoke appear in The Open Book, "a traveling exhibition that tracks the history of the photographic medium in the twentieth century through printed images in book form".[8]

Issues

Facsimile

The Japanese Box, published in 2001 by Edition 7L (Paris) and Steidl (Göttingen),[n 3] contains facsimiles of all three issues of Provoke (as well as Nakahira's For a Language to Come, Moriyama's Farewell Photography and Nobuyoshi Araki's Sentimental Journey) and a newly edited booklet of explanatory material in English. The Box (an actual wooden box) was made in an edition of 1500.[9]

Publications about Provoke

Notes

  1. ↑ Variously also translated as 'provocative resources for thought', 'provocative materials for thinkers', 'provocative documents for the sake of thought' and 'provocative documents for the pursuit of ideas'
  2. ↑ Also translated as 'First Abandon the World of Certainty'.
  3. ↑ ISBN 3-88243-301-9.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Martin Parr; Gerry Badger (2004). The Photobook: A History, Volume I. London: Phaidon Press. pp. 269–271. ISBN 978-0-7148-4285-1.
  2. 1 2 "For the sake of thought: Provoke, 1968–1970", Museum of Modern Art. Accessed 8 January 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Case 4: Provoke", Art Institute of Chicago. Accessed 8 January 2015.
  4. ↑ Lederman, Russet (24 August 2012). "Provoke: Takuma Nakahira and Yutaka Takanashi". International Center of Photography. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  5. 1 2 Daido, Moriyama; Maggia, Filippo; Lazzarini, Francesca (2010). The World through My Eyes. Milan: Skira. p. 437. ISBN 978-88-572-0061-3.
  6. 1 2 3 Shirayama, Mari (2003). "Major Photography Magazines". In Tucker, Anne Wilkes. The History of Japanese Photography. Houston, TX: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. p. 384. ISBN 978-0890901120.
  7. 1 2 "Fire and Water – Takuma Nakahira’s For a Language to Come", Gerry Badger. Accessed 8 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Roth, Andrew, ed. (2004). The Open Book: A History of the Photographic Book from 1878 to the Present. Göteborg: Hasselblad Center. pp. 9, 240–245.
  9. ↑ A. D. Amorosi, "Agitate and Cogitate: The momentary return of Japan’s Provoke magazine", Philadelphia City Paper, 3–10 January 2002. Accessed 14 January 2015.
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