Daisuke Yokota

Daisuke Yokota is one of the most talked-about young 
Japanese photographers. In May 2015 he won the inaugural 
John Kobal residency award for an emerging artist at Photo 
London, where he was praised for “his meticulous approach 
to photographic experimentation, combined at times with 
visceral performances” and his willingness “to continuously 
test the limits of photography”. Earlier in 2014 his talent was 
already recognised by Outset/Unseen Exhibition Fund, who 
granted him a solo exhibition at Foam. 

Born in 1983 in Saitama, north of Tokyo, Yokota is part of a 
generation of young artists using photography in subversive 
new ways. His approach combines multiple rephotographing 
and printing, applying acid or flame to the end results, and 
making one-off prints and books from unexpected materials 
in staged public performances. Yokota is working out of, and 
pushing forward, a Japanese tradition of photobook-making 
that harks back to the visceral experimentation of the Provoke 
generation and the work of the relentless photobook-maker 
Daido Moriyama. Yokota has produced several acclaimed, 
and almost immediately hard-to-find photobooks, including 
Linger and Vertigo.