KIKUJI KAWADA - CHIZU

KIKUJI KAWADA
CHIZU

Published by Mack, 2021
Book size 19.7 x 29.9cm, 272 pages (total)
Two hardback books, each with a jacket,
plus one paperback booklet with leporello fold. Housed in a buckram bound hardback slipcase, protected in a printed cardboard mailer
Bilingual: English, Japanese
ISBN 978-1-912339-71-6

Kawada's The Map / Chizu is the most famous and sought after book in the history of Japanese photography. D esigned with the noted graphic designer Kohei Sugiura, Chizu has seen numerous editions since its original publication in August 1965. In November 2001, New York Public Library acquired the rarest version of the book, Kikuji Kawada's unique, handmade maquette. The maquette presents a notably different physicality than that of the published edition — many of the pictures are the same but with varying croppings, tonalities, orientations, and a markedly dissimilar configuration with a pair of jacketed volumes — each nearly twice as large in format as the published version—separated by a black-and-white divider. With its pages made of thin, silvery darkroom prints, folded in half and pasted back-to-back, there are no folios to unfurl, only a progression of intense, full-bleed images. This MACK version is an exquisite facsimile of the two-volume maquette, and includes an accompanying bilingual booklet featuring new scholarship by Joshua Chuang and Miyuki Hinton, together with an extended interview with the artist, detailing the evolution of one of the greatest photobooks ever made .

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Kawada’s La Carte / Chizu is the most famous and sought-after book in the history of Japanese photography. Designed with the renowned graphic artist Kohei Sugiura, Chizu has seen many editions since its original publication in August 1965. In November 2001, the New York Public Library acquired the rarest version of the book, Kikuji Kawada’s unique, hand-made maquette. The maquette has a markedly different physicality than the published edition—many of the images are the same but with varying crops, tones, orientations, and a distinctly different configuration with a pair of jacketed volumes—each nearly twice the size of the published version, separated by a black-and-white divider. With its pages composed of fine, silvered darkroom prints, folded in half and glued back to back, there are no folios to unfold, only a progression of intense, full-bleed images. This MACK release is an exquisite facsimile of the two-volume maquette, and includes an accompanying bilingual booklet featuring new scholarship by Joshua Chuang and Miyuki Hinton, as well as an extended interview with the artist, detailing the evolution of one of the greatest photobooks ever made.

Editor's text