Masao Gozu - New York Just Open It! [Signed] - 1990

[PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS]

Photographer: Masao Gozu
Title: New York: Just Open It!
Publisher: Advertise Communication Co., Ltd., Tokyo
Year Published: 1990
Edition: First Edition
Format: Hardcover with original clear plastic cover
Pages: 147 pages
Dimensions: Approximately 36.1 × 25.7 cm
Language: Japanese and English
Texts: Kohtaro Iizawa and Ivan C. Karp
Producer / Art Director: Showa Okamura
Printing: Tosho Printing Co., Ltd., Japan
ISBN: 4-90052-02-0
Inclusions: Original clear plastic cover
Signed: Inscribed and signed by Masao Gozu, dated April 2006

[OVERVIEW]

Masao Gozu arrived in New York in 1970.

He began photographing the city’s inhabitants through the windows of tenement buildings, treating each opening as both a frame and a stage. Faces emerge behind curtains, animals wait beside their owners, and strangers pause at the boundary between private rooms and the street. The distance is physical. The intimacy is not.

Published in 1990, New York: Just Open It! brings together Gozu’s principal black-and-white photographic series: Windows, Harry’s Bar and 264. The photographs span changing neighborhoods and decades, yet return to the same architectural threshold. A window can reveal a life without explaining it.

The book includes essays by photography historian Kohtaro Iizawa and Ivan C. Karp, presented in Japanese and English.

[IMPORTANT NOTE FOR INTERNATIONAL BUYERS: EASY AI TRANSLATION]

The book contains both Japanese and English text. Japanese passages can also be read using smartphone translation tools such as Google Lens, ChatGPT or Google Translate.

[WHY THIS VOLUME IS A PRIZED COLLECTOR'S ITEM]

From November 5, 2026 through March 15, 2027, MoMA PS1 will present Masao Gozu: Windows and Bars, the first United States museum exhibition devoted to Gozu’s singular photographic practice. The exhibition focuses on photographs made from the 1970s to the present, including key works from the Windows and Harry’s Bar series that form the core of this book.

New York: Just Open It! is not a later survey assembled after the fact. It was published in 1990, while Gozu was still developing the project, and preserves the work in the scale and sequence of its own period. This copy is also inscribed and signed by the artist, with the date April 2006.

The door was never the subject. The window was.

[CONDITION]

Good vintage condition.

Original Clear Plastic Cover: The protective plastic cover shows age-related wear, including loss at the head of the spine, cracking at the foot of the spine, small splits and tears along the edges, and general surface wear.

Printed Cover: The head of the spine has a visible tear and wear. Additional light rubbing and shelf wear are present along the edges and corners.

Binding: Firm and secure.

Interior: Clean overall, with no conspicuous writing, tears or missing pages visible in the listing photographs, apart from the artist’s signed inscription.

Signature: Boldly signed and dated “Apr. 2006” on the front endpaper.

Please examine all listing photographs carefully, particularly the third image, for the condition of the spine head and original plastic cover.