Photography that Provokes

Perhaps the most literal reflection of the effects of the nuclear era on Japanese society is “Atomic Bomb Damage: Wristwatch Stopped at 11:02, August 9, 1945, Nagasaki,” a picture by Tomatsu. But the title of the exhibition itself might well refer to the elegiac quality of so much photographic work made in Japan in the decades following the war. “Kanaitachi, # 31,” by Eikoh Hosoe, for example, shows a figure running under a corona that evokes the iridescent glow of the atomic bomb, while “La Nuit, 5,” by Takuma Nakahira, and “Route 16,” by Daido Moriyama depict streaks of light outlining objects or figures as if they were radiating from an exploding bomb.

Moriyama, among the photographers most widely exhibited in the U.S., had apprenticed to both Hosoe and Tomatsu. The greater influences he has often cited, though, are Robert Frank and William Klein. “My approach is very simple—there is no artistry, I just shoot freely,” Moriyama said in a statement for his exhibition at The Japan Society in New York in 1999. “For me, photography is not about an attempt to create a two-dimensional work of art, but by taking photo after photo, I come closer to truth and reality at the very intersection of the fragmentary nature of the world and my own personal sense of time."

In 1974, John Szarkowski organized a show called New Japanese Photography at the Museum of Modern Art. He put his finger on the subtle generational differences between Tomatsu and Moriyama in his catalogue essay, writing, "The suggestion of the nihilistic that exists in Tomatsu's work has been made boldly and effectively explicit by Moriyama.... [W]hat in the older man is a sense of tragedy becomes in the younger an occult taste for the dark and frightening.”

What could be darker and more frightening than bombs exploding all around you? That fear—and its attendant dissociation—is what speaks loudest in the haunting photographs of the Provoke Era.

Plus: Check out Art Beast for galleries, interviews with artists, and photos from the hottest parties.

Philip Gefter was a picture editor at The New York Times and wrote regularly about photography for the paper. His book of essays, Photography After Frank, was recently published by Aperture. He is currently producing a feature-length documentary on Bill Cunningham of the Times, and working on a biography of Sam Wagstaff.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.