Our Thursday series features must-read books from each branch of the art bookshop NADiff. This week's recommendation is "Hanaga Mitsutoshi 1000." It's introduced by the NADiff A/P/A/R/T 1F, 1-18-4 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, the flagship store in Ebisu, Tokyo.

■ "Hanaga Mitsutoshi 1000"

The unknown photographer Hanaga Mitsutoshi continued to document a wide range of scenes from the turbulent 1960s to the 1980s, including avant-garde art, underground theater, events, pollution issues, student movements, butoh, and commune activities. This fifth volume in the "1000" series has been published.

Hanaga's photographs feature a stellar cast of artists who defined the era, including Genpei Akasegawa, Shuji Terayama, Tadanori Yokoo, and butoh dancers Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Young people sniffing paint thinner, people wearing helmets gathering for May Day rallies, women dressed in psychedelic fashion... Hanaga's photographs serve as a testament to the artists and young people who lived through this era. This overwhelmingly voluminous volume of over 1,000 pages conveys a sense of the era's rapid pace as you turn the pages. Born in Tokyo in 1939 and passing away in 1999, Hanaga Mitsutoshi has only recently begun to attract attention. The archive project began after his son, Hanaga Taro, received an inquiry about using his photographs during the "Hi Red Center" exhibition at the Nagoya City Art Museum in 2013 (REAR no. 32, Hanaga Taro, "Total Recall: The Work of Hanaga Mitsutoshi"). At Art Fair Tokyo 2014, "Aoyama | Meguro" and "Gallery Kochuten" were both featured in full. There is growing momentum both in Japan and overseas to reevaluate these photographs as "artworks" by Hanaga Mitsutoshi, rather than as documentary photographs.

The "1000" series has previously been published as "Machiguchi Satoru 1000," "Tokyo TDC 1000," "Ukawa Naohiro 1000," and "Nakahira Takuma 1000."
【Book Information】
Book Title: "Hanaga Mitsutoshi 1000"
Author: Kuro Dalaiji
Publication Year: April 2017
Publisher: 1000BUNKO
Released by: bookshop M
Paperback / 1,024 pages / 1 color printing
Language: Japanese, English
Number of copies: First edition 950
Price: 3,700 yen

【Related Book】
Includes "Total Recall: The Work of Hanaga Mitsutoshi" by Taro Hanaga
Title: "REAR no. 32"
Publisher: Rear Production Studio
Publication Date: August 2014
A5 size / 140 pages / Paperback