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Masahisa Fukase's timeless masterpiece "Yoko" finally available again

Originally published in 1978, Masahisa Fukase's "Yoko" stands as a defining series in his body of work, yet it had long been out of print. Now, nearly half a century later, this extraordinary photobook returns, brought to life with the full support of Yoko Miyoshi (formerly Fukase), Fukase's model and muse, and under the careful supervision of Tomo Kosuga, director of the Masahisa Fukase Archives. This new reprint edition faithfully includes all photographs and texts from the original edition.

Additionally, it includes contemporaneous texts referenced at the time of the original publication, an essay by Masako Toda (photography critic and historian), and a heartfelt message from Yoko Miyoshi on the occasion of this reissue. Every aspect of the book's design and composition has been meticulously crafted to reaffirm the significance of this masterpiece and the passage of time it has endured.

Fukase and Yoko met in 1963 and were married in 1964. In the 1960s, they lived together as newlyweds at the Soka-Matsubara public housing complex, where Fukase began photographing Yoko. In the 1970s, he continued to capture her in various locations, including his hometown of Hokkaido, her birthplace of Kanazawa, as well as Izu, Kyoto, and other places. In the autumn of 1973, Fukase created a series titled "Untitled (From the Window)," capturing Yoko's elegant poses every morning as she left for work, taken from the fourth-floor window of their home using a telephoto lens. These photographs were published intermittently between 1964 and 1976 in the magazine Camera Mainichi.
In 1974, Fukase's works were included in the "New Japanese Photography" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. During this period, the couple traveled to New York, and the scenes from this journey were also captured in his photographs.

Fukase's relentless pursuit of self-exploration led him to consistently turn his camera toward himself and his family.

As Tomo Kosuga notes, Fukase's private life became art, making the personal public and gradually leading to "a paradox in which they seemed to be together solely for the sake of photography."
The couple divorced in 1976, and two years later, the photobook "Yoko" (published by Asahi Sonorama) was completed. The cover featured a photograph of Yoko in a kimono, gazing back through shattered glass radiating outward, a powerful and poignant image that captured the essence of their complex relationship.

For this new reprint edition, the book's format has been expanded to amplify the presence of each photograph, and the cover has also been renewed. In addition, the pages featuring ravens – ominous yet poetic symbols that seemed to foretell the future of the couple – are now arranged with greater stillness and deliberation, inviting viewers to engage more deeply with every image.
In revisiting "Yoko," one must ask: What, ultimately, did Fukase capture through his lens? Against the backdrop of the era's spirit, the photobook contemplates the essential question of photography - the nature of relationships between two individuals.
We hope that this book "Yoko," with its liberated scale and profound sensitivity, spreads its wings and takes flight once more, soaring freely into the present and resonating anew in our time.

Whether we call it love or a mirror, it is undoubtedly one and the same-the profound communion with the other.
― Masako Toda

Here is the record of photographs taken by one man of one woman over a period of more than ten years.
― Shoji Yamagishi