This started out as a list of photography books I liked, but now it’s just a list of “things.”

Go Itami, Study ¹. Rondade. Design by The Simple Society ². Great book design. I think this book will be worth a lot in the future.

Taisuke Koyama, The City Breathes and Ages ³. Maybe my favorite book, because it’s cheap (¥1000) and uses an unusual form (the children’s book).

Naoya Hatakeyama, Kesengawa. Light Motiv. Wrote a couple of words about it here ⁴.

Mika Kitamura, Einmal ist keinmal ⁵. Therme. Snap’s not dead.

Takuma Nakahira, Gecko. Little Big Man. I meant to write lots more about how good the Japanese books coming out of Little Big Man have been, but this book sold out so quickly that I just didn’t get around to it. The Keizo Kitajima book from last year, USSR 1991, is incredible.

Shomei Tomatsu, Make ⁶. Super Labo. Just really good.

Kyoungtae Kim, On the Rocks ⁷. Your Mind. Wait, maybe this was my favorite book, and not just because it was cheap.

Lieko Shiga, Rasen Kaigan. Akaaka. I saw the exhibit the first week of January, and probably didn’t see anything better the rest of the year. This book is the catalog of that exhibition.

Kitai Kazuo Slideshow, Earth DOM. This might have been as good as Shiga’s exhibit in terms of the impact it had on me, the sense of experiencing something great, not in the totalized Wagnerian sense but in a fragmented way.

Kazuo Yoshida, “TB” at hpgrp. Yoshida is going to do big things.

The first room of Issei Suda’s show at Syabi. Like a black and white Rinko Kawauchi, and I mean this in a good way.

Kayo Ume’s installation of Jiichamsama at her Tokyo Opera City show.

Chu-ha Chung’s speaking event.

Hiroko Komatsu’s show at photographers’ gallery.

Taisuke Koyama’s installation in Shodoshima.

Wataru Yamamoto, “Drawing a Line” at photographers’ gallery and “Plane Tree Observations” at Yumiko Chiba.

Keiji Uematsu, “Cutting‐Axis・Latitude・Longitude” at Yumiko Chiba.

The “Out of Doubt” exhibit at Mori Art Museum, a great attempt to locate some kind of consciousness in contemporary Japanese art.

Talking about baseball with Seung Woo Back.

Generational solidarity.

Being able to read Japanese.

Showing my parents and my sister around Japan.

Kathryn Abbe, “Light and Shadow” at Tosei-sha.

Kathryn Abbe, “Light and Shadow” at Tosei-sha.

© Mika Kitamura

Mika Kitamura ¹ has a show at THERME Gallery ² which is up until March 31. She’s also published a very good book (hardcover, edition of 1000) to go along with the exhibit. I recommend seeing the show if you are in Tokyo.

Flyer for "Einmal ist Keinmal/my small fib"

My friend John sent me a link to Mika Kitamura’s site a few weeks ago. There’s a lot of work up there, but I liked her series “?????????” or “From one roll of film” the best. Looking at the work by Fukuyama Emi and Yamashita Tsuneo has been pushing me towards more empty compositions, and these photos make me think along the same lines.

As it happens, the first five photos on 415Kurt’s photostream strike me in the same way as this other work. They are night shots of San Francisco houses with a strong feeling for the city.