Provoke : Translations

Provoke was first published in November 1968 as a dojin-shi, or self-published magazine. It was originally conceived by art critic Koji Taki (1928-2011) and photographer Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015), with poet Takahiko Okada (1939-1997) and photographer Yutaka Takanashi as dojin members.

The subtitle for the magazine was “Provocative Materials for Thought,” and each issue was composed of photographs, essays and poems. After releasing the second and third issue with Daido Moriyama as a subsequent member, the group broke up with their last publication First, Abandon the World of Pseudo-Certainty - an overview edition of the three issues. Provoke’s grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus photographs were initially ridiculed as are-bure-boke and stirred a great deal of controversy, yet it had created a strong impact inside and outside of the photography world during that time. However, today, Provoke has become an extremely rare book and very few people have seen the original.

Why does Provoke matter today? Provoke has been attracting increasing attention in recent years, in and out of Japan. In 2016, an extensive photography exhibition entitled Provoke: Between Protest and Performance Photography in Japan, 1960-1975 opened first in Austria, then toured to Switzerland, France and the United States. Provoke has challenged existing photographic conventions and posed fundamental questions of visual perception, in the midst of the social and political upheaval during the late sixties. Now the world is gradually recognizing and re-examining its significance in a multitude of contexts. Source: www.vincentborrelli.com