How has photography come to occupy its place within contemporary art? The answer depends on where one begins. Many influential Euro-American histories have traced photography’s emergence through Conceptual art and institutional critique, while parallel developments in Japan followed a markedly different trajectory.
Photography in Parallel: Japanese and Western Critical Perspectives since the 1960s brings together two newly commissioned essays by critics Takanao Seki and Megumu Takashima alongside five historically significant texts selected by Miyuki Endo and Gen Umezu. Originally published from the 1960s onwards, and newly translated into English, writings by critics including Toshiaki Minemura and Yusuke Nakahara examine how photography has been discussed in Japan in relation to painting, sculpture, printmaking, and other art forms. Rather than presenting these historical writings as fixed records of past debates, this volume reconsiders them in relation to contemporary practice.
Three essays by Nancy Foote, Andrei Monastyrski and Robert Smithson, selected by Duncan Wooldridge, widen the frame, carrying these Japanese debates into broader transnational dialogue. Through this exchange between Japanese and English-language discourse, the book develops a layered reading of photographic expression from the postwar period to today, inviting renewed attention to the multifaceted nature of photography and its capacity to generate new critical possibilities.
Published as part of the T3 NEW TALENT programme – an initiative by T3 to foster emerging talent and support the development of photographic culture in Asia – this book introduces Japanese photographic criticism into wider circulation.
Featuring Nancy Foote, Yukio Kondo, Toshiaki Minemura, Andrei Monastyrski, Yusuke Nakahara, Terry Smith, Takanao Seki, Megumu Takashima, Kyoji Takizawa
Director Yumiko Chiba (Director, T3 NEW TALENT Art Critic Programme)
Producer Ihiro Hayami (T3 Founder/Executive Director)
Editorial Manager Tim Clark
Editorial Assistant Thomas King
Art Direction & Design Sarah Boris
Japanese Text Editor Fuyuki Ono
Project Managers Akane Miki, Kana Ikezawa (T3 NEW TALENT Art Critic Programme)
Translator Pamela Miki
T3 NEW TALENT Authors Takanao Seki, Megumu Takashima
Selectors Gen Umezu, Miyuki Endo, Duncan Wooldridge
Publication date September 2026
Format Soft cover, sewn-bound
Dimensions 14.2 x 21.2cm
Pages 128
Publisher 1000 Words (1000 Words Photography Ltd)
ISBN 978-1-0369-9058-9
Supported by the Japan Creator Support Fund
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