Between June 28 and August 27, 2017, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie presents the exhibition Memory and Light: Japanese Photography 1950–2000, featuring a collection of photographs donated by Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. In connection with the exhibition, the MEP library showcases a selection of Japanese photobooks.
The library’s collection of Japanese books, assembled with the help of Kaze Kuramochi, currently includes over 1,300 works, most of which have not been on sale in France.
Postwar Japan had no museums or any major specialized galleries; and books, magazines, and journals, that is the printed page, were the only way for photographers to show their work. In the Japanese mindset, the impact of a book or a journal—and thus a structured series of images making it possible to understand a body of work centered on a given subject takes precedence over an exhibition featuring a handful of images. The impact of a work cannot be fully understood if images are isolated, since this dilutes the intention of the photographer: the relationship established by the very succession of images is severed.
The ideographic origin of Japanese writing gives the image a central place in the Japanese culture, unmatched by other cultures based on syllabic or alphabetic systems of writing. The importance of graphic design, of the placement of images on the page, was already paramount in woodcuts. To this day, many Japanese photographers privilege the book format, which they consider to be the ultimate vehicle for their work. That’s why they often write their own texts for the book publication or the magazine layout where their images appear. The history of the Japanese photobook shows that the photographers of the Land of the Rising Sun were among those thanks to whom the photobook is considered today to be a work of art in its own right.
Irène Attinger
Irène Attinger is head of the library and bookstore at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris.
Mémoire et lumière, photographie japonaise, 1950-2000
June 28 to August 27 2017
Maison Européenne de la photographie
5/7 Rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris
France
