User:Andrew34jack/Provoke (magazine)

Historical Background
According to to historian Nick Kapur, the early 1960s saw political struggle in Japan reach its high point because of the United States-Japan Security Treaty (ANPO for short in Japanese) was due for revision. The treaty would allow the US to maintain military bases in Japan and was protested from 1959 to 1960. A majority of the left wing within Japan saw that it as a symbol of growing US influence on the Japanese political landscape. This was especially evident in universities where young people were becoming disillusioned with the political situation. Due to rigid standards for art imposed by the communist government that became dominant during the postwar period, up to the late 1950s, Japanese artists became increasingly frustrated at their lack of freedom. Coupled with the Japanese economic boom during the 1950s to 1970s, it was becoming increasingly more viable for artists to make a living off of their art alone.

Along with the political turmoil, the 1960s saw the expansion of a number of artistic movements. Provoke was part of the photographic movement that arose out of the late 1960s and was motivated by the opposition artists had felt towards the traditional powers of Japan. Now with increased political awareness, artists turned their eye towards the societal changes that had occurred during a period of strong economic growth. As a result of the political unrest, the Japanese government reacted by boosting public campaigns to spread their ideologies, mainly through the promise of a brighter future by encouraging increased consumption habits. Taki saw the potential for a new form of documentary photography that could inform his anti-government message and bring about changes in the cultral landscape.

During the early 1960s, Tomatsu Shomei was considered by many art critics as the leading photographer in Japan. He was a member of the photography agency VIVO, largely modeled after the prestigious European collective Magnum Photos. Tomatsu became a mentor to a new generation of up and coming photographers, which included Koji Taki, Takuma Nakahira, and Moriyama Daido. It was during the preparations for the “Shashin 100-nen" (A Century of Japanese Photography) exhibition, where Taki was able to oversee the selection of hundreds of works by Japanese photographers. It was also during this time where Taki felt that the dominant ideologies of the government had began influencing the artistic choices made by Japanese photographers. He felt that the "neutrality of art" was being threatened, thus creating the Provoke collective.

Purpose of Provoke
Members of Provoke aimed to change the traditional conceptions of Japanese photography. In particular, they proposed a new direction for documentary photography that was sharply different from their predecessors. During the time of the Vietnam war, the works of Magnum photographers began circulating through the mass media, as well as other highly publicized galleries. Their work depicted the carnage of the Vietnam war, embracing a "realism" approach to documentary photography. Members of Provoke saw these photographs as appealing to universal humanity during the Cold War era. Members of Provoke sought to focus on a more personal and affective style. In his book, Kotoba no nai Shiko (Wordless Thought: Notes on Things, Space and Image), Taki wrote that it was an “attempt to dismantle the semantic environment” with the purpose “of trying to change reality”.

The first issue, Provoke Manifesto, was the first realization of the collective's philosophy. They wished to depict reality as they saw it, if "only a fragment". Photography was a medium that was able to transcend language and thought. The main focus was to convey atmosphere and energy.

"“Today when words have lost their material base – in other words, their reality – and seem suspended in mid-air, a photographers’ eye can capture fragments of reality that cannot be expressed in language as it is. He can submit those images as documents to be considered alongside language and ideology. This is why, brash as it may seem, Provoke has the subtitle ‘provocative documents of thought’”."

Style
Unlike many of their contemporaries, Provoke decided to focus on the monotony of urban life by choosing architecture, disenfranchised citizens, and abandoned sites as their subjects. This was in keeping with their ideals of rejecting the "traditional photographic subject". They sought to directly counter the "clean" and "functional" city that the state continued to promote during this period of economic growth.

Provoke's photos were characterized through a distinctive style that was often blurry, dark and out of focus. This visual style has been said to be, in Japanese, "are-bure-boke", translated as "grainy/rough, blurry, out-of-focus", a style already found in mainstream magazines such as Asahi Camera and Camera Mainichi. Photographic effects such as distortion, aggressive grain and high contrast images were embraced by the group. Photographers often used images that other photographers would discard. These effects were a result of their experimentation with the development process of film photography, including altering industry standards for exposure times, correct temperature for the development process, and the printing process.

During a time where the Japanese mediascape was being reorganized around digital and audio-visual media, paper was gaining the perception of being outdated. Seeing its immediacy to the readers as a merit, Provoke chose to place a heavy emphasis on the medium of paper. The imperfections that lied within the printing process, such as the lost of detail in prints, were also embraced by Provoke photographers. They frequently utilized a printing technique known as halftone, which would dramatically increase the contrast and grain of an image. The group also chose to print their publications using a square format, and leaving no margins at the edges of the paper. These aggressive techniques made it seem as if the photos seemingly bled into each other.

Nakahira and Moriyama had been experimenting with "are-bure-boke" prior to their involvement in Provoke, and Moriyama's 12-part conceptual project "Akushidento (Accident)" for Asahi Camera in 1969 took the approach in new directions. There were other comparable radical magazines and groups at the time including Geribara 5, which published three books. Asahi Journal, Kikan shashin eizō (The Photo Image) and Design also served as platforms for avant garde photography in the 'are-bure-boke' style by Nakahira, Moriyama and others.

Disbandment
Towards the end of the publication, doubts began to arise among members whether the magazine achieved its original purpose. While Taki remained faithful to the initial vision of the magazine, Nakahira was beginning to question whether the abstraction of their methods was having concrete effects on the external world. As a result, Nakahira left the group to pursue work that was more direct and measurable in external influence. Nakahira would then publish an essay titled in Japanese “Naze shokubutsu zukan ka?” (Why an illustrated botanical dictionary?), describing his previous efforts with Provoke as not neutral enough.

The individual works of Moriyama and Taki that came afterwards still followed much of original style and purpose of Provoke. Along with other contemporaries, these photographers would go on to be known as the “Era of Provoke”. Subsequent works by members of Provoke arguably are continuations of the ideologies that the magazine sought to spread. Works including Nakahira's “For a Language to Come”, Moriyama's "Bye Bye Photography", and Takashi's "Toshi-e Towards a City".