Dèjá-Vu Nº9 – Nan Goldin, Nobuyoshi Araki, Shimao Shinzo (1992)

Dèjá-Vu was an excellent magazine dedicated to photography in its full form. This perfectly printed and exquisite good taste journal could only have been crafted in Japan, the land of the most meticulous and mesmerizing photobooks. Usually it is focused in a main topic (it could be a genre of photography or an author) and then features the work of local current authors and some exhibitions and book reviews. Besides that some short articles and interviews can appear in their pages, but usually related to the main element of the issue. In some of these issues also there is a small part dedicated to experimental printing, and paper or printing styles suddenly change in the most extravagant ways.

This photography quaterly is the ninth out of twenty essential works created by Dèjá-Vu and presents some works of the “Ballad of Sexual Dependency” by Nan Goldin plus an interview of her titled “My photo-ethic”. Also features the work of Nobuyoshi Araki that presents his close-up portraits of food in delightful colors, a serie called “The Banquet” that is followed by an interview and an essay. Other photographers featured in this issue are Shimao Shinzo, Tokuko Ushioda, Takashi Nakagawa, Hiroyuki Tanino, Jun Furuta and Gregory Colbert. There are also several essays, reviews and other articles.

All texts are in Japanese, but there are very short summaries in English.

Photo-Planète, 1992. Softcover, 180 pages. ISBN: 4309903339.

First edition. Condition: minor storage marks, very good condition.