Seiji Kurata - Photographs London Tuesday, November 22, 2022 | Phillips
  • “I smell blood in Kurata’s photographs.”
    —Shōmei Tōmatsu
    During the summer of 1975, Japanese artist Seiji Kurata (b.1945) began photographing the seedy streets of Ikebukuro in north-western Tokyo at night, using a medium-format camera (Asahi Pentax 6x7) and a strong strobe. Focusing on the underbelly of Japanese society, his subjects included yakuza, strippers, transvestites, prostitutes and their clients. This powerful image represents the reverse of Tattooed Man, sold at Phillips in May 2017. Here, we see two heavily tattooed yakuza in their loincloths on a building rooftop as they look out at the city at night. The figure on the left (the subject of Tattooed Man) crouches while the other stands assertively, representing their respective ranks. This striking photograph was taken in October 1975 during Kurata’s first year of nightly adventures in the entertainment district of Ikebukuro where he encountered scenes he described as ‘whirlpools of excitement’. Writing in 2013, Kurata recalled his indelible encounter with the yakuza:

     

    The town is bright with streetlights, pubs, game centres, cafes, restaurants, arrays of neon and spotlights. Two tall men call out to me. They look and act like playboys.

     

    – Hey you, that’s a big camera, huh? I bet it takes good photos. Take one of us! 
    – Huh, black and white? Are you broke? 
    – What, don’t you even have colour? 
    – Not even a studio? 
    – Money! Sure, we’ll pay you.

     

    As if following a script, they keep up their big talk. I try hard to break in, saying I can’t do it in the middle of a crowd of people, or that I might be caught by the police, but in the end, I promise to photograph them three days later. There are no nice landscapes, no skylines or good scenery, and we decide to make the top of a building our studio. On the emergency staircase the two play for ages with their swords like actors in a samurai film and tell me to make them look like [the actor] Ken Takakura. They also tell me to show them all the photos taken, and to make big prints of any that are good.

     

    In referring to his photographs taken in the 1970s, Kurata later remarked, ‘If you asked me to take these pictures today, I couldn’t. Those things that were previously hidden were all brought to the surface.’ In the photograph offered here, Kurata cuts through the darkness with his bright flash to reveal the pride and determination of his subjects.

    • Provenance

      Archive of Seiji Kurata

    • Literature

      Seiji Kurata: Japan, Tokyo: Shinchosha, 1998, n.p.

49

Ikebukuro, Rooftop of the Bungeiza Street Building

1975
Gelatin silver print.
Image: 45.3 x 55.5 cm (17 7/8 x 21 7/8 in.)
Sheet: 45.7 x 55.5 cm (17 7/8 x 21 7/8 in.)

Credit stamp on the verso.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£8,000 - 12,000 

Sold for £10,080

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Photographs

London Auction 22 November 2022