KEISUKE NAGOSHI — CHICANO, Tokyo Kirara-sha / Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Japan, 2008

Photobook, Keisuke Nagoshi, CHICANO. Tokyo Kirara-sha / Kawade Shobo Shinsha, Japan, 2008. First edition softcover with dust jacket and wraparound obi, 30 × 23 cm, 146 pp. Japanese text. Published 23 July 2008. Out of print; no reprint currently planned.

Nagoshi, born in Nara in 1977, began photographing marginal communities, squatters, and street cultures from the late 1990s. CHICANO follows his photographs of Chicano communities in the United States, recording a culture often filtered through stereotype, music, tattooing, violence, and mythology. The work sits alongside his wider body of practice on subculture, social edges, and lived proximity rather than distant reportage.

The sealed state is the key point. A photobook made for looking and handling has been retained at the threshold of circulation, still carrying its first layer of commercial protection. The shrinkwrap is part of the record: publisher, distributor, shop, storage, delay. This copy survives not simply as a book, but as held stock — an image object paused before use. Its meaning changes through placement, retention, and renewed circulation.

Condition: Sealed and unread in original distributor shrinkwrap. Book, dust jacket, and obi remain protected beneath the plastic. Outer shrinkwrap shows light surface rubbing, compression, and storage wear from distribution and handling. Interior unexamined, as the copy remains unopened.