Kazuo Kitai – Resistance

Kazuo Kitai
Resistance (Signed)

Published by KAZUO KITAI FOTO INSTITUT, 2015
Size : 30 x 30 cm
25 Pages - 12 images
Hardcover
Limited Edition of 151 numbered copies

“I have been a photographer for 50 years now since I took the photographs for ‘Resistance’ when I was 20. I took photographs with film and printed them using the silver gelatin process. Now I have decided to say goodbye to my old analogue photography companions using film and will be making silver prints from now on. My photographs will all be taken with a digital camera and the prints will be digital, and the works will be published as prints such as photography books.

I know this is a decision that requires some resolve. Yet, I believe that after 50 years, it's the right time to make that decision. The publication of this new color edition of "Resistance" means I'm starting photography again.

Although I took the photos of the Yokosuka Naval Base in color, I have never seen these photographs in color. I waited 50 years before I finally had the chance to see these images in color. I want to reflect now on what '50 years' means to me.

-artist's statement

50 years after he took the photographs of the Zengakuren student protests at Yokosuka Naval Base in 1964, Kazuo Kitai's previously unseen and unpublished photographs taken during the same period that capture the bar district in the vicinity of Yokosuka Naval Base have now been produced and published in its full-color form. Having originally intended to publish the photographs of the bar district alongside the student protests, Kitai lacked the financial resources, choosing to publish only the black and white images and thus produced what would become his iconic photobook "Resistance" in 1965. Finally, 50 years after its intended publication, these previously unseen images offer a comparative overview of an already iconic body of work. Captured just a week after the turbulent student protests at the Yokosuka Naval Base, Kitai's "Resistance Color" is a unique and significant addition to the seminal collection of Japanese protest books from the 1970s and 1980s.