***SELF-PROMO ALERT***

Nice video interview with Eikoh Hosoe for the current Theatre of Memory show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. I also make a fleeting appearance if you look closely enough.

Kohei Sugiura.

I thought I would feature a graphic designer today for a change. Sugiura is one of the great Japanese graphic designers: he was responsible for some of the greatest photobooks of the ‘golden age’ of Japanese photobook publishing in the 60s and 70s: Eikoh Hosoe’s Barakei (Killed by Roses), 1963; Kikuji Kawada’s Chizu (The Map), Tokyo, 1965; Yutaka Takanashi’s Toshi-e (Towards the city), 1974; Jun Morinaga’s Kawa, River Shadow of Shadows, 1978 (see a few covers above). Find out more here and here.

Eikoh Hosoe, Deadly Ashes: Pompeii, Auschwitz, Trinity Site, Hiroshima

This recent book of Hosoe’s links volcanic eruption, genocide, and the atomic bombing to the birthplace of the A-bomb.

Tadanori Yokoo (*1936), Japanese Culture the Fifty Postwar Years, 1995, Offset

Great little selection of Japanese posters (hi-res) from the DNP Archives of Graphic Design. This one’s by Tadanori Yokoo, who is also responsible for this beauty, a poster for Eikoh Hosoe’s exhibition, Kamaitachi (a nice selection of some of Yokoo’s posters is available here).