Seiji Kurata
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Nihongo". was a Japanese photographer.
Career
Kurata was born in Chūō-ku, Tokyo, 1945. He graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1968.[1] He taught in secondary school and worked in oils, printmaking, and experimental movies.[2] He practised under Daidō Moriyama in an independent photography workshop in 1976.[3]
Kurata won the fifth Kimura Ihei Award in 1980 for his first book, Flash Up. For the black-and-white photographs here, Kurata used flash and a medium format camera,[4] resulting in a detailed portrait of a world of bōsōzoku, gangsters, rightists, strippers, transvestites, and so on: as Parr and Badger point out, these are old subjects; but in his "highly polished, detailed" work, Kurata "has an unerring instinct for pictures that suggest stories".[5] Photo Cabaret and 80's Family continued in this direction. This Japanese work of Kurata's is anthologized in his later volume Japan. Kurata won the PSJ award in 1992. A long stay in Mongolia in 1994 led to the book Toransu Ajia, which continued color work of the Asian mainland started with Dai-Ajia. In 1999 Kurata's book Japan won the Kodansha Publishing Culture Award (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) for a work of photography.[6] Prints of Kurata's photographs are in the permanent collections of ICP (New York), the Brooklyn Museum, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.[7]
He died on 27 February 2020.[8]
Solo exhibitions
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Street Photo Random Tokyo 1975–79". Nikon Salon, Tokyo and Osaka, 1979.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Photo Cabaret". Doi Photo Plaza, Shibuya, Tokyo, 1983.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Street Photo Random Tokyo 2". Nikon Salon, Tokyo, 1986.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Great Asia". Minolta Photo Space, Shinjuku, Tokyo, 1990.[9]
- "Quest for Eros" I. Mole, Tokyo, 1993.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Trans Asia". Nikon Salon, Tokyo; Visual Arts School, Osaka, 1995.[9]
- "Tokyo: Theatrical Megalopolis". O. K. Harris Gallery, New York, 1995.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler "Trans Market: Tokyo Kanda vegetable and fruit market". Nikon Salon, Tokyo and Osaka, 1996.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler Japan from the 70s to the 90s. Kodak Photo Salon, Tokyo, 1999.[9]
- "Quest for Eros" II. Galleria Prova, Tokyo, 1999.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler. Epsite, Tokyo, 2008.[9]
- Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler. Gallery Punctum, Tokyo, 2009.[9]
- "Trans Asia, again!" Place M, Tokyo, 2013.[9]
Publications by Kurata
Following a title in Japanese script, an italicized roman-letter title is one provided on or in the book itself; a non-italicized roman-letter title is a mere gloss of the original title.
- Flash Up: Street Photo Random Tokyo 1975–1979. Tokyo: Byakuya Shobō, 1980. Black-and-white photographs. Includes one essay in English but also several in Japanese only; the captions too are only in Japanese.
- Foto Kyabarē (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) / Photo Cabaret. Tokyo: Byakuya Shobō, 1982. Template:ISBN. Black-and-white photographs of Japan. Text in Japanese only.
- Dai-Ajia (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, Great Asia). Tokyo: IBC, 1990. Template:ISBN.
- 80's Family: Street Photo Random Japan. Tokyo: JICC Shuppankyoku, 1991. Template:ISBN. Black-and-white and colour photographs of Japan. Text in Japanese only.
- Toransu-Ajia (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, Trans-Asia). Tokyo: Ōta Shuppan, 1995. Template:ISBN.
- Japan (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) / Japan. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, Photo Musée, 1998. Template:ISBN. The captions are in English.
- Kuesuto fō Erosu (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) / Quest for Eros. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1998. Template:ISBN.
- Trans Asia, again! Tokyo: Place M, 2013. Template:ISBN. Zine, published on the occasion of an exhibition at Place M of the same title.
- Flash Up. Tokyo: Zen Foto Gallery, 2013.
- Toshi no zōkei (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler). Kamakura: Super Labo, 2015. Template:ISBN.[n 1]
Notes
References
- ↑ 1968: Iizawa, Tōkyō Shashin, p.260; also Sanjūroku fotogurafāzu, p.11. According to the blurb on the front and back flaps of Kurata's Japan, 1976.
- ↑ Sanjūroku fotogurafāzu, p.11.
- ↑ Wākushoppu Shashin-juku, taught by Shōmei Tōmatsu, Nobuyoshi Araki, Masahisa Fukase, Eikoh Hosoe, Noriaki Yokosuka, as well as Moriyama. Sources: Iizawa, p.143; Sanjūroku fotogurafāzu, p.11.
- ↑ The array of specific hardware used is listed at the back of the book; it does include a 35mm SLR camera as well.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ List of past award winners Template:Webarchive, Kodansha. Accessed 7 December 2009.
- ↑ TPO Photo School profile.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m List of exhibitions, last (non-numbered) page, "Trans Asia, again!" (Tokyo: Place M, 2013).
Links and sources
- Template:In lang Iizawa Kōtarō. Tōkyō shashin (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler) / Tokyo Photography. Tokyo: Inax, 1995. Template:ISBN. Despite the English subtitle, all in Japanese. Photographs by and essays on Kineo Kuwabara, William Klein, Masatoshi Naitō, Shigeo Gochō, Nobuyoshi Araki, Daidō Moriyama, Ryūji Miyamoto, Kyōichi Tsuzuki, and Yurie Nagashima, as well as Kurata.
- Template:In lang Profile at TPO Photo School.
- Template:In lang Review of Toransu-Ajia.
- Ono, Philbert. "Kurata Seiji". Brief note at PhotoGuide Japan.
- Parr, Martin, and Gerry Badger. The Photobook 1. London: Phaidon, 2004. Template:ISBN.
- Template:In lang Sanjūroku fotogurafāzu: Kimura Ihei Shashinshō no sanjūnen (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, 36 photographers: 30 years of the Kimura Ihei Award). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun, 2005. Template:ISBN. With sample photographs from each of the award-winners.
- Template:In lang Shashinshū o yomu: Besuto 338 kanzen gaido (Script error: No such module "Lang".Template:Category handler, Reading photobooks: A complete guide to the best 338). Tokyo: Metarōgu, 1997. Template:ISBN. P.172. Review of 80's Family.