• `Keizō Kitajima — 東京 No. 2 (Tokyo No. 2), Photo Express Tokyo, February 1979. Front cover. High-contrast black and white photograph of two figures in close proximity, faces partially obscured, one in a leather jacket, set against a dark ground with diagonal structural elements. Title in teal kanji and Latin type upper centre: 東京 No 2. Date and price: 1979. FEBRUARY · 200 YEN. Green circular stamps along foot reading: 写 真 特 急 便 〒 北 島 敬 三 (Photo Express Mail, Kitajima Keizō).`
  • `Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979 — interior plate. High-contrast black and white photograph of a woman seated at low angle, wearing a floral-patterned qipao dress, platform shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat. Face tilted upward, smiling, body angled toward camera. Flash-bleached highlights against deep black ground. Tokyo nightlife, 1979.`
  • `Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979 — interior plate. High-contrast black and white photograph of two figures in extreme close-up: a woman wearing large dark sunglasses holding a cigarette, mouth slightly open, face turned toward a second figure whose lips are close to her cheek. Grain pushed to near-abstraction. Tokyo nightlife, 1979.`
  • `Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979 — interior plate. High-contrast black and white photograph of a woman standing in a darkened interior, face turned upward in profile, wearing a sheer or satin robe-like garment that catches the light. Vertical streaks of flash illumination against deep black. Japanese text column in teal ink along right margin. Tokyo nightlife, 1979.`
  • `Keizō Kitajima — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979 — back cover. High-contrast black and white photograph of a figure leaning back over a chair, mouth open, arm raised, face caught in flash light against a patterned background. Small teal text block and postage stamp upper right. Staple binding visible at left spine. Heavy wear and creasing to covers.`
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CAMP Gallery

KEIZŌ KITAJIMA — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979

KEIZŌ KITAJIMA — Photo Express Tokyo No. 2, February 1979

£50.00 GBP
£50.00 GBP
Sale Placed
Taxes included.

Tokyo, February 1979. Softcover photographic booklet, 16 pp., 25.8 × 18.3 cm. Black-and-white offset print with spot colour. Cover price: 200 yen.

Second issue of Keizō Kitajima’s Photo Express Tokyo, a twelve-part sequence of monthly photographic booklets published in 1979 in connection with his year-long exhibition project at CAMP gallery, Tokyo. Each issue contained sixteen pages and operated as both publication and immediate extension of the exhibition.

The images are high-contrast, nocturnal, unstable. Figures emerge through flash, grain, clothing, cigarette smoke, sunglasses, surface glare. Tokyo appears less as city than as printed impact: bodies pressed into black ink, social space reduced to gesture, pose, and exposure.

The cover gives the structure clearly: Tokyo, No. 2, February 1979, 200 yen. Not a later photobook in the conventional sense, but a fast object — made to circulate close to the time of the photographs and the exhibition itself. The booklet format keeps the work provisional, serial, and disposable.

This appears to be an original 1979 issue, not the 2012 Steidl/Le Bal facsimile reissue, based on the single No. 2 booklet format, 200 yen cover price, period wear, and absence of slipcase, ISBN, or reprint markings. Offered as “apparently first issue” pending colophon confirmation.

Condition: Good. Surface rubbing, creasing, edge wear, and handling marks throughout. Stapled spine intact. Wear consistent with age and circulation. Original period item, apparently first issue.

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