Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, editions

Japan: A Photo Theater, (Nippon Gekijō Shashinchō, にっぽん劇場写真帖) is Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama’s first book. It was published in 1968, the year after he had received the New Artist Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association for his series of images of (street) performers published in the monthly photography magazine Camera Mainichi. The book contains these images, mixed with street scenes and other pictures, seemingly chosen at random, giving a glimpse of Moriyama’s world and of what would become his trademark style. This visual language was part of the burgeoning Japanese photography scene of the late sixties, encapsulated in the legendary Provoke Quarterly. The first issue was published later in 1968, with Moriyama contributing to volumes 2 & 3 in 1969.
The book opens with several pages of text followed by a photograph of Japanese actor Shimizu Isamu (Moriyama recently devoted a whole book to this actor, published by Akio Nagasawa (www.akionagasawa.com). It ends with haunting close-up photographs of foetus-like babies, presumably dolls. In between is a vast array of strong, high contrast, snapshot-like black and white imagery. The middle of the book contains a second text section, which comes like a brief break, before you continue with your journey through this energetic book.
The images are printed in matt-black gravure, although some images have that xerox quality to them, of which I’m personally a big fan. The paper used for the text pages is thin, almost newsprint-like, and usually yellows with age.
This book launched Daido Moriyama’s unstoppable journey into the realm of Olympian street photographers.

The book was only available as a softcover, housed in a very simple, and fragile, brown cardboard slipcase.

Text by Terayama Shuji (寺山修司)

Daido Moriyama’s website: www.moriyamadaido.com

Published by Muromachi Shobo, July 1968

Soft cover with slipcase

22.1 x 20.8 cm

216 pages (including front and end papers)

The book was republished in 1995, 2011 and 2018. (see below)

Cover back and front

Slipcase back and front

Front papers (signed Daido Moriyama)

Daido Moriyama (森山大道), Japan: A Photo Theater (Nippon Gekijō Shashinchō, にっぽん劇場写真帖), 1995

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 1995 edition dust jacket with obi band back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 1995 edition dust jacket back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 1995 edition cover back and front

Published by SHINCHOSHA Publishing ,Co.,Ltd,Japan / Photo Musée, December 1995

Soft cover with dust jacket and obi-band

25 x 20 cm

284 pages

Daido Moriyama (森山大道), Japan: A Photo Theater (Nippon Gekijō Shashinchō, にっぽん劇場写真帖), 2011

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2011 edition dust jacket with obi band back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2011 edition dust jacket back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2011 edition cover back and front

Published by Kodansha ltd, Japan 2011

Soft cover with dust jacket and obi-band

11,5 x 18,1 cm

218 pages

Daido Moriyama (森山大道), Japan: A Photo Theater (Nippon Gekijō Shashinchō, にっぽん劇場写真帖), 2018

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2018 edition slipcase back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2018 edition cover back and front

Daido Moriyama, Japan: A Photo_Theater, 2018 edition, text and index booklet cover back and front

Published by Getsuyosha Limited October 2018

Hard cover with soft cover booklet and slipcase

23 x 30,8 cm

220 pages (book)
56 pages (booklet)

www.bookshop-m.com

See these other PROVOKE – related publications:

Daido Moriyama, Japan; A photo theater, 1968

Provoke 1, 1968

Provoke 2, 1969

Provoke 3, 1969

First, Throw Out Verisimilitude, 1970

Takuma Nakahira, For a Language to Come, 1970

Daido Moriyama, Bye bye photography, 1972

Yutaka Takanashi, TOWARDS THE CITY (TOSHI HE), 1974

Guevara Shashinshu || Che (Che Guevara photo collection – ゲバラ写真集 || チェ), 1969