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Takuma Nakahira

author · photographer

Takuma Nakahira (1938–2015) was a prominent Japanese photographer, critic, and theorist. He is best known as a founding member of the seminal photography collective Provoke, which published an experimental magazine between 1968 and 1970. Nakahira played a central role in developing the theorization of landscape discourse (fūkei-ron) in Japanese photography, exploring how images interact with urban infrastructure and capitalist geopolitics. His work is characterized by various styles, including 'are, bure, boke' (rough, blurry, out-of-focus), as well as more clinical catalog-style photography. He published several influential photobooks, notably 'For a Language to Come' (1970) and 'Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary' (1973). After suffering from alcohol poisoning in 1977, which resulted in memory loss and aphasia, his practice shifted toward more direct, unmediated encounters with subjects. His legacy is recognized through major retrospectives at institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yokohama Museum of Art.[1]

Themes

  • landscape discourse
  • urban infrastructure
  • media ecologies
  • post-war Japanese identity

Books

  1. Takuma Nakahira / Daido Moriyama / Yutaka Takanashi / Koji Taki PROVOKE 4 & 5 1698
    PROVOKE 4 & 5
    author · photographer
    €437.00
  2. Takuma Nakahira Why the Botanical Encyclopedia? 1609
    Why the Botanical Encyclopedia?
    author · photographer
    €250.00

Works by Takuma Nakahira

  • Why the Botanical Encyclopedia? 1973 · Asahi Sonorama · book · Japanese Also known as 'Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary' (Naze, shokubutsu zukan ka).
  • For a Language to Come 1970 · Fūdosha · book · Japanese Kitarubeki kotoba no tame ni.
  • Circulation: Date, Place, Event 1971 · book · Japanese Created for the Paris Biennial.
  • Overflow 1974 · book · Japanese Hanran.
  • A New Gaze 1983 · book · Japanese Aratanaru gyōshi.
  • Adieu à X 1989 · Kawade Shobō Shinsha · book · Japanese ISBN 978-4-309-26111-9 AX.
  • Degree Zero—Yokohama 2003 · Osiris · book · Japanese ISBN 978-4-9901239-1-8 Catalogue for solo show at Yokohama Museum of Art.

Exhibitions

  • 2017 Takuma Nakahira: Circulation Art Institute of Chicago solo
  • 2003 Degree Zero—Yokohama Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama solo

Awards

  • 1990 Society of Photography Award Society of Photography (Tokyo)

References

  1. Takuma Nakahira. 2024 link
  2. Franz Prichard. Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015). Artforum. 2015 link
  3. Martin Parr; Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History, Volume I. Phaidon Press. 2004
  4. Mari Shirayama. Major Photography Magazines. 2003
  5. Yuri Mitsuda. Trauma and Deliverance: Portraits of Avant Garde-Artists in Japan, 1955-1970. 2012
  6. Provoke. Nitesha. 2018 link
  7. Kōtarō Iizawa. The history of Japanese photography. Yale University Press. 2003
  8. Bonnie Huie. Made in Japan: Review of Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and '70s. Afterimage. 2010 link
  9. Ryūichi Kaneko; Ivan Vartanian. Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and '70s. Aperture. 2009
  10. Ryūichi Kaneko; Ivan Vartanian. Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and '70s. Aperture. 2009
  11. Ryūichi Kaneko; Ivan Vartanian. Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and '70s. Aperture. 2009
  12. Franz Prichard. On 'For a Language to Come,' 'Circulation,' and 'Overflow': Takuma Nakahira and the Horizons of Radical Media Criticism in the Early 1970s. Houston Museum of Fine Arts. 2015
  13. Masao Adachi; Takuma Nakahira; Yūsuke Nakahara. On Landscape (1970). Museum of Modern Art. 2012
  14. Masao Adachi; Takuma Nakahira; Yūsuke Nakahara. On Landscape (1970). Museum of Modern Art. 2012
  15. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  16. Yuriko Furuhata. Cinema of actuality : Japanese avant-garde filmmaking in the season of image politics. Duke University Press. 2013
  17. K. Yoshida. Avant-garde art and nondominant thought in postwar Japan : image, matter, separation. Routledge. 2021
  18. Charles Merewether. Art, anti-art, non-art: experimentations in the public sphere in postwar Japan, 1950-1970. Getty Research Institute. 2007
  19. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  20. Marilyn Ivy. Discourses of the vanishing : modernity, phantasm, Japan. University of Chicago Press. 1995
  21. K. Yoshida. Avant-garde art and nondominant thought in postwar Japan : image, matter, separation. Routledge. 2021
  22. Yuri Mitsuda. For a new world to come : experiments in Japanese art and photography, 1968-1979. Houston Museum of Fine Arts. 2015
  23. Circulation: Date, Place, Event. 1971
  24. Yuri Mitsuda. Trauma and Deliverance: Portraits of Avant Garde-Artists in Japan, 1955-1970. 2012
  25. For a new world to come : experiments in Japanese art and photography, 1968-1979. Houston Museum of Fine Arts. 2015
  26. For a new world to come : experiments in Japanese art and photography, 1968-1979. Houston Museum of Fine Arts. 2015
  27. Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary. Shōbun sha. 1973
  28. Philip Charrier. Nakahira Takuma's 'Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary?' (1973) and the Quest for 'True' Photographic Realism in Post-War Japan. Japan Forum. 2017 link
  29. Why an Illustrated Botanical Dictionary. Shōbun sha. 1973
  30. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  31. Overflow. 1974
  32. A New Gaze. 1983
  33. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  34. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  35. Yuriko Furuhata. Cinema of actuality : Japanese avant-garde filmmaking in the season of image politics. Duke University Press. 2013
  36. Franz Prichard. Residual futures : the urban ecologies of literary and visual media of 1960s and 1970s Japan. Columbia University Press. 2019
  37. Degree Zero—Yokohama. Osiris. 2003
  38. Kuraishi Shino. Trauma and Deliverance: Portraits of Avant Garde-Artists in Japan, 1955-1970. 2012
  39. Society of Photography Award. Society of Photography (Tokyo). 1990
  40. Degree Zero—Yokohama. Osiris. 2003
  41. Art, anti-art, non-art: experimentations in the public sphere in postwar Japan, 1950-1970. Getty Research Institute. 2007
  42. Tokyo: 1955-1970. Museum of Modern Art. 2012
  43. Provoke: Photography in Japan between Protest and Performance, 1960-1975. Art Institute of Chicago. 2017