Japan. Counter-Photography: Japan's Artists Today by Uri Mitsuda.

Japan Foundation, 2000. Photographers: Eikoh Hosoe; Hiroshi Sugimoto; Miho Akioka; Miyuki Ichikawa; Akiko Sugiyama; Chie Yasuda; Kazuo Katase; Hiroko Inoue; Tomoko Yoneda; TomoakiIshihara; and Michihiro Shimabuku. Wraps, 78 pages, very good with rubbing on cover, interior fine. Summary:

ounter-Photography: Japan's Artists Today is a prominent traveling exhibition and accompanying catalog organized by the Japan Foundation. Curated by Yuri Mitsuda, a respected art historian and curator at the Shoto Museum of Art in Tokyo, the exhibition was designed to challenge conventional assumptions about Japanese aesthetics while exploring the changing nature of contemporary photography.

The exhibition explores how photography can move beyond merely documenting material reality to capturing unseen spiritual, psychological, and social truths. It organizes the work of eleven influential Japanese photographers into two distinct, thematic sections:

• To Distill—Another Appearance: This section focuses on artists who attempt to extract the essential "spirit" or concealed reality of their subjects, looking past the surface of visible objects.

• To Reverse—Another Relationship: This section features works that examine a deeper commentary on identity, probing the artists' complex relationships with themselves, others, and the shifting social, cultural, and political landscapes of post-industrial Japan.

The exhibition features an array of over sixty diverse works from eleven leading male and female photographers spanning different generations of the Japanese avant-garde. Prominent featured artists include internationally renowned masters such as Eikoh Hosoe and Hiroshi Sugimoto, alongside influential contemporary figures like Kazuo Katase, Tomoko Yoneda, Hiroko Inoue, Miyuki Ichikawa, and Michihiro Shimabuku. By bringing together such a broad range of formal styles, concepts, and techniques, the project highlights the vibrant diversity of contemporary Japanese art during a period of rapid societal change.