Yutaka Takanashi: Photography 1965-74

A month ago marked the start of the 2010 Les Rencontres D'Arles smoking convention which I attended for a few days. I found a small number of books (still trying to show restraint) which I will mention in the upcoming weeks. The main draw for me is the competition which names one "contemporary" book and one "historical" book as "best of the year" - the winners get 8000 euros each. Last year I entered the first Errata Editions books for the historical prize and we didn't fair very well. The judges that year were extremely critical of the concept of my books and not for the reasons you would think. (See my report from last year for more details).

So this year I entered the new Errata books with no hope of a prize but purely to help introduce them to a new audience. That Saturday, the day I was leaving, they made the final decision on the two awards and I was excited, not to mention surprised, to hear that this year's judges liked the series so much they were considering them for the historical prize. Their final decision went to Japanese Photobooks of the 60s and 70s from Aperture instead, but I am pleased to say that during the award ceremony that evening, they gave Errata Editions a special runner-up mention.

The winner of the contemporary book went to Only Photography's fine book Yutaka Takanashi Photography 1965-74. Only Photography is Roland Angst's independent publishing house in Berlin. Their books are beautifully produced with a strong care towards design and printing and the Takanashi book is their best so far. Past titles have been Ray K. Metzker's Automagic and Frauke Eigen's Shoku.

This hardcover book presents an edit of 41 images from Toshi-e in a large vertical format and the selection corresponded to an exhibition of mostly vintage prints that was on display at Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, Germany. This marked the first solo showing of Takanashi in Germany. One of the gallery directors, Ferdinand Bruggemann is a specialist on Japanese photography and contributes a fine essay on Takanashi and his masterwork, Toshi-e. A second essay by Hitoshi Suzuki, who was an assistant to Kohei Suguira the book's designer, provides a personal remembrance of discovering the book in Seguira's design studio while it was being created. A short preface from the gallerist Priska Pasquer opens the book.



Yutaka Takanashi Photography 1965-74 is beautifully realized with three different cover images silk screened onto the cloth of the boards. A yellow translucent dustjacket wraps the book and the color I have been told reflects the tone off an exhibition poster from the first solo exhibit of this work in Japan in the 1980s. The printing of the plates is also exquisite - a modern offset interpretation of the original's lush gravure which remains rich and clean. The design reflects the twisting and turning of the original (horizontals oriented vertically) but with additional gatefolds for a few of the horizontal pictures. It was printed in an edition of only 500, 30 of which come signed and numbered with a print. An additional 100 were signed and numbered by Takanashi. I strongly recommend this book if you can get one. They are a bit pricey but I assure you it is because these books were expensive to produce.

So this year was a clean sweep of awards nodding towards Japan (it was also our study of Toshi-e that had gotten the main attention from the jury). My congratulations go to Aperture and Roland of Only Photography, I don't mind coming in second when the competition was that strong.