Takuma Nakahira - Gecko - 2013

Gecko

Takuma Nakahira
Little Big Man/2013/Japanese/220*273*10

Gecko / Yamori is a collection of works by Takuma Nakahira, one of Japan's most representative photographers of the 20th century. Published by Little Big Man, a publishing house founded by photographer Nick Haymes that has previously handled solo exhibitions and photobooks for artists like Nobuyoshi Araki and Keizo Kitajima. Curated by Takashi Homma, a leading contemporary Japanese photographer, all works featured in this book were selected by Homma. It includes color plates of photographs Nakahira took in the 2000s, alongside a portrait of Nakahira photographed by Homma in 2011. The motif of this book is Nakahira's “The End of the Gaze,” first published in his 1977 co-authored work with Kishin Shinoyama, “Dueling Photographic Theory.” It is presented as a novelistic narrative of a series depicting a gecko capturing a moth. This text, and the book itself, powerfully impresses upon the reader the images from Nakahira's later period. He evolved beyond the conventional photographic style, represented by monochrome blurred images depicting personal mental landscapes, to confront the world as it is and photograph it like an encyclopedia. It is an ideal volume for discovering a different charm of Nakahira, distinct from his work in “Provoke” or “For the Words to Come.” Limited edition of 300 copies. Numbered edition.