The work of critic and photographer Nakahira Takuma (1938-2015) has received a curiously partial reception in the decades since the late 1960s and 1970s. Although active as a photographer until his death in 2015, Nakahira has largely been celebrated for his legendary role in defining an are-bure-boke photography (rough or grainy, shaken, and out of focus) as cofounder of Provoke in the late 1960s, an influential Japanese photography magazine synonymous with this style (now almost exclusively identified with Provoke contributor Moriyama Daidō). Curiously, despite this “legendary” status, the critical significance of Nakahira’s writings and his post-Provoke photography have escaped critical attention both in Japan and worldwide, until recently. Important exhibitions in Japan and the US, as well as re-publications of Nakahira’s major works in Japan have laid the ground a deeper appreciation of the scope of Nakahira’s photographic praxis as a mode of radical critique for a global audience.
This book is a complilation of nine Nakahira´s essays.