Dimensions: 286 x 426 mm
Pages: 130
This is a seminal photo book from the Japanese Provoke photographer Yutaka Takanashi. The book's images exhibit the familiar Provoke gestural aesthetic; many of them look as if they were shot out of car windows, either speeding away from or towards the eponymous city, which we may read as Tokyo, or the modernJapan. Towards the City is a book about economics, consumption and the inevitable price paid for the economic boom in polluted skies and a land strewn with waste and detritus.
The striking disc on the front of the large book presumably represents the rising sun of Japan, or the rising sun of Japanese capitalism, but any symbolism is ironic, for the work is dark and troubled in tone.
Hardcover with full black cloth and metal disc, black cloth portfolio box, 426 x 286 mm, and 126 pp paperback booklet titled "Tokyo-Jin" (257 x 182 mm). First edition, 1974. Gravure printing. Included in Martin Parr & Gerry Badger, The Photobook, vol.I, p.302 ; Ryuichi Kaneko & Ivan Vartanian, Japanese Photobooks of the 1960's and 70s, p. 168-171.
first edition
signed and dedicated copy available; in very good condition
stock number: AB034