51 years ago The Museum of Modern Art opened the groundbreaking exhibition, New Japanese Photography. The show was a collaboration between MOMA’s czar of Photography John Szarkowski in New York and the prominent (photo) magazine editor, Shoji Yamagishi in Tokyo. This show was responsible for introducing Japanese photography to a western audience and for 30 years was the only major survey of Japanese photography in the west.
I had no idea that such a notable event as the 50th anniversary of this exhibition had come and gone until I saw a catalog to a show and symposium held last year in Tokyo at the T3 Photo Festival on my favorite Japanese photobook website, Shashasha Books. The catalog is called, More Than One World; New Japanese Photography 50 Years On. The book reconsiders the historical significance of the 1974 exhibition and sheds light on overlooked perspectives.
The catalog takes note of the fact that the actual practice of photography in Japan was subducted to make it palatable and understandable in a western context. In Japan at the time the idea of a photographic print having any value was unknown. The real piece of art was the photobook and the print was considered just a step in the process towards it. But John Szarkowski insisted that the show be singular images on the wall. The exhibition was basically 15 one man shows. A large part of it should have been devoted to the artists work in books the way it would have been presented in Japan. It is interesting to note that the photobook has taken on a life of its own with many fairs, symposiums and shows devoted to the medium.
Force Of Seeing 