Miyako Ishiuchi - Endless Night - 1981
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Description from the seller
Very good condition, even the cardboard check the pictures, just a tiny stamp on credits page that say "Special Distribution" check the last pictures.
Endless Night (1981) is one of Miyako Ishiuchi’s most haunting and psychologically charged photobooks, forming part of her early black-and-white trilogy alongside Apartment and Yokosuka Story. Shot in her hometown of Yokosuka and other red-light districts, the book documents abandoned brothels and decaying interiors, transforming them into deeply evocative spaces of memory and absence.
What makes Endless Night so compelling is not simply its subject matter.
Rather than depicting people directly, Ishiuchi focuses on absence: empty rooms, worn decorations, barred windows, and fragile details like heart-shaped cutouts or stained glass. These fragments suggest stories without narrating them, evoking a quiet reverence for the women who inhabited these spaces and the passage of time that has erased them.
The repetition of similar interiors across the book creates a cumulative effecT almost oppressive.
Mirroring the monotony and anonymity of life in such environments. At the same time, her images resist sensationalism; they are neither voyeuristic nor moralizing, but instead imbued with a melancholic sensitivity.
Ultimately, Endless Night is less about place than about memory, trauma, and the lingering presence of history in physical spaces. It reveals Ishiuchi’s early interest in the intersection of the personal and the political, particularly in relation to postwar Japan and the gendered experiences embedded within it.
Seller's Story
Dartbooks is a specialized photography bookshop based in Barcelona, dedicated to photobooks, rare and out-of-print editions, and historically significant publications. With a strong focus on Japanese photography, Dartbooks was founded to provide continuity to a field that requires depth, expertise, and careful curation.
The bookshop was established after the closure of Kowasa, a landmark reference for photography books in Spain. Its disappearance left a clear gap for photographers, collectors, and institutions in need of a space with a serious and knowledgeable approach to the photobook. Dartbooks emerged in response to that need, not as a replacement, but as part of the natural evolution of a cultural ecosystem.
Dartbooks operates with a curatorial mindset, shaped by long-term engagement with photography and book collecting. The project functions as a book hunting platform for collectors, professionals, and libraries worldwide, and also provides advisory support to other bookshops seeking to develop coherent and specialized photography collections.
The catalogue includes new publications, rare and out-of-print titles, monographs, retrospectives, self-published works, signed copies, and editions produced directly by photographers through their own imprints. The selection reflects a sustained commitment to photography as a form of visual narration, where images construct meaning beyond text.
Although rooted in the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona, Dartbooks serves an international audience. Its community includes collectors, professionals, and institutions from France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and beyond, both through the physical space and the online platform.
Dartbooks understands the photobook not merely as an object of consumption, but as a cultural artifact that documents artistic practices, historical contexts, and personal visions. The bookshop functions simultaneously as a place of discovery, an archive in constant growth, and a point of connection between photographers, publishers, and readers.
Very good condition, even the cardboard check the pictures, just a tiny stamp on credits page that say "Special Distribution" check the last pictures.
Endless Night (1981) is one of Miyako Ishiuchi’s most haunting and psychologically charged photobooks, forming part of her early black-and-white trilogy alongside Apartment and Yokosuka Story. Shot in her hometown of Yokosuka and other red-light districts, the book documents abandoned brothels and decaying interiors, transforming them into deeply evocative spaces of memory and absence.
What makes Endless Night so compelling is not simply its subject matter.
Rather than depicting people directly, Ishiuchi focuses on absence: empty rooms, worn decorations, barred windows, and fragile details like heart-shaped cutouts or stained glass. These fragments suggest stories without narrating them, evoking a quiet reverence for the women who inhabited these spaces and the passage of time that has erased them.
The repetition of similar interiors across the book creates a cumulative effecT almost oppressive.
Mirroring the monotony and anonymity of life in such environments. At the same time, her images resist sensationalism; they are neither voyeuristic nor moralizing, but instead imbued with a melancholic sensitivity.
Ultimately, Endless Night is less about place than about memory, trauma, and the lingering presence of history in physical spaces. It reveals Ishiuchi’s early interest in the intersection of the personal and the political, particularly in relation to postwar Japan and the gendered experiences embedded within it.
Seller's Story
Dartbooks is a specialized photography bookshop based in Barcelona, dedicated to photobooks, rare and out-of-print editions, and historically significant publications. With a strong focus on Japanese photography, Dartbooks was founded to provide continuity to a field that requires depth, expertise, and careful curation.
The bookshop was established after the closure of Kowasa, a landmark reference for photography books in Spain. Its disappearance left a clear gap for photographers, collectors, and institutions in need of a space with a serious and knowledgeable approach to the photobook. Dartbooks emerged in response to that need, not as a replacement, but as part of the natural evolution of a cultural ecosystem.
Dartbooks operates with a curatorial mindset, shaped by long-term engagement with photography and book collecting. The project functions as a book hunting platform for collectors, professionals, and libraries worldwide, and also provides advisory support to other bookshops seeking to develop coherent and specialized photography collections.
The catalogue includes new publications, rare and out-of-print titles, monographs, retrospectives, self-published works, signed copies, and editions produced directly by photographers through their own imprints. The selection reflects a sustained commitment to photography as a form of visual narration, where images construct meaning beyond text.
Although rooted in the Gràcia neighbourhood of Barcelona, Dartbooks serves an international audience. Its community includes collectors, professionals, and institutions from France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and beyond, both through the physical space and the online platform.
Dartbooks understands the photobook not merely as an object of consumption, but as a cultural artifact that documents artistic practices, historical contexts, and personal visions. The bookshop functions simultaneously as a place of discovery, an archive in constant growth, and a point of connection between photographers, publishers, and readers.
Details
Number of books
1
Subject
Photography
Book title
Endless Night
Author/ Illustrator
Miyako Ishiuchi
Condition
Very good
Publication year oldest item
1981
Height
27.5 cm
Edition
1st Edition
Width
21 cm
Language
Japanese
Original language
Yes
Publisher
Asahi Sonorama
Binding/ Material
Softback
Extras
Slipcase
Number of pages
125
