For a Language to Come.

For a Language to Come. Photographs by Takuma Nakahira. Osiris, 2010. 160 pp., 100 black & white images 8¼x11¾". Images from Osiris.

Takuma Nakahira is a Japanese writer, photographer, political activist, co-founder of Provoke magazine and author of the influential 'For a Language to Come' (originally published in 1970, and now re-issued in 2010).


'For a Language to Come' was the first photobook by Takuma Nakahira "the photographer who brought about a turning point in contemporary Japanese photography from the late 1960s to the early 1970s by radically breaking away from the existing image aesthetics at that time.

This book consists of one hundred black and white photographs including his work from the legendary photography magazine Provoke.

[...]

The 2010 republication of 'For a Language to Come' with a new cover design is an attempt to engage Nakahira’s photographic point of departure again in the present, to discover this work as one that is more vibrantly resonant today.

For a deeper appreciation of his critical thought and practice, the supplement to the republication presents three essays written by Nakahira in the early 70s."


'For a Language to Come' "marked a distinct turning point in the history of Japanese photography, heavily influencing what subsequently became the stark hallmark aesthetic mostly associated with his contemporaries Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Due to the extreme rarity of the original publication, this work has been largely inaccessible for decades - its republication is a wonderful opportunity to reexamine what has rightly been hailed a masterpiece."

First quote from publisher's description ; second quote from photo-eye.