"ONE OF JAPAN'S BEST PHOTOBOOKS OF THE 1980S"

KURATA, Seiji. Flash Up. Street PhotoRandom Tokyo 1975-1979. (Tokyo: Byakuyashobo, 1980). Small folio, original white paper wrappers, original paper obi. $1200.

First edition of Kurata’s first photobook, “one of Japan’s best photobooks of the 1980s,” with 199 black and white photographs.

"Seiji Kurata, a student of Daido Moiryama, has a unique photographic voice… The cast is familiar-yakuza, strippers, transvestites, Hell's Angels, members of the ultra-nationalist Black Dragon Society… Kurata, however, makes telling photographs from this familiar mix. He has an unerring instinct for images that suggest stories. They are highly polished, detailed pictures, full of information, and his pioneering technique, using a medium-format camera, was much copied. His tone is distinct, cooler than Moriyama's, similar to Araki's, but focused more on the sociological and less on the sexual… this remains one of Japan's best photobooks of the 1980s" (Parr & Badger I:305). Text in Japanese and English.

Book and rarely present obi fine.