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倉田精二 Seiji KURATA (Japan)

Posted by Zen Foto Gallery

14 May, 2020

倉田精二 Seiji KURATA (Japan)

Price On Request

**"FLASH UP"**

**PRINTS FOR SALE**, for more images
他のイメージもございますので、お気軽にお問い合わせください
please contact [amanda@zen-foto.jp](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=mailto%3Aamanda%40zen-foto.jp&t=M2MxYzM0MDcxNDE4NTY4M2M3MDU4Yjk2MmVkNTM0OTU4M2M1MDg1MixWRUtHZ0lmZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AveuyjpOEXdnxA_bJyZXfzg&m=1)

**Silver gelatin print, all signed by artist.**
Available in the following three sizes as modern print:p:11×14inch 
p:16×20inch  
p:20×24inch 

Publication
["Flash Up"](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shashasha.co%2Fjp%2Fbook%2Fflash-up%2F&t=Zjk2YzQzNWM0ODIxMmNmZWMzOGQ4OGFkNDA5YjY5MGMyMDRhZjk1ZixWRUtHZ0lmZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AveuyjpOEXdnxA_bJyZXfzg&m=1) (2013 New Edition) (Zen Foto Gallery, 2013)

**SEIJI KURATA
(1945― )**

Born in Tokyo in 1945, photographer Kurata Seiji graduated from the department of oil painting of Tokyo National University of the Arts. Influenced by the art of his time since his student days, he kept on carrying on his creative activity crossing various genres: on one hand he produced works of an avant-garde level while also dealing with the production of 8mm films. However, his first and genuine grappling with photography came a bit late in his life, when he was approaching 30. In 1974, simultaneously with the opening of Workshop School of Photography*1 by Eikoh Hosoe, Tomatsu Shomei, Nobuyoshi Araki and Moriyama Daido, as one of the first generation students, he took Moriyama's classes. After graduating the following year, he began his career as a freelance photographer.

After assembling pictures for about one year, in 1976 his work "Kinsha - Ikebukuro nights" was published on Workshop School of Photography's magazine "Quarterly Workshop" (n°8). Exposing the habits and life of the people squirming through the amusement quarters, like gay cross-dressers or women working in brothels and their customers, to his intense strobe flash, this work discloses the desires of those who sink in the darkness of the city and has been highly assessed as cutting through a whole new territory of documentary photography. Even after that, continuously extending his range of subjects to yakuza, right-wing politicians and delinquents, he kept shooting non-stop the nights of Ikebukuro and in 1979 he held the solo exhibition "Street Photo Random Tokyo 1975-79" at Ginza Nikon Salon, Tokyo. The following year the photography book "Flash Up" was released, presenting a recap of his activity throughout the last five years in 190 images. By looking at his subjects in such a realistic way that goes up to cruelty, the dirty energy that lurks in the capital is brought up to surface within a moment by the group of images is exceedingly provocative, so lively that is occasionally urges the vision to the point of violence.

This kind of approach regarding the city continued also afterwards, but Kurata's gaze had been turning towards the amusement districts of the night eventually moved to focus onto the city's everyday life. He cast light onto the mundane aspects of a such a central city as the Tokyo of the 1980s, and the pictures that gouged out the omen concealed at such depths have been collected in 1991 in the work "80's family" (Takarajimasha, 1991), winner of the Photographic Society of Japan's annual award the following year. In 1998 he published "Japan", a collection that should be rather called the grand sum of his street photography since the 70s which granted him the 30th Prize of Photo section Kodansha publishing in 1999.

Furthermore, the same Kurata Seiji who had been constantly looking at the Japanese cities since 1975 has turned his gaze also towards Asia. Since his first trip in Asia in 1976, he traveled to Philippines, Thai, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Korea, China and Mongolia, casting light on the din and bustle hidden in the depths of several Asian cities: the complete record of his photography of these almost 20 years had been issued in 1995 in the photography book "Trans-Asia" (Ota-shuppan, 1995).

*1 Workshop School of Photography:Photography school operating from 1974 to 1976. Having its core in Tomatsu Shomei, and starring Nobuyoshi Araki, Fukase Masahisa, Hosoe Eikoh, Moriyama Daido and Yokosuka Noriyaki as teachers, it offered once a week courses and lectures in photography in a style that resembled the one teacher-run private schools of Edo. Being an independent school built by the forefront photographers of that time, it surely drew a lot of attention。Regarding bulletins, it had its own publication, "Quarterly Workshop". This school produced photographers like Kurata Seiji, Kitajima Keizo, Ishikawa Mao and also the independent galleries known by the photographers of the end of the 70s such as "Put" or "Camp" have been shaped holding this school's graduates as their core.

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