NAKAFUJI, Takehiko - Night Crawler 1995/2010

Background information, reviews

"Two monochrome portraits of Tokyo in 1995 and 2010. In 1995, when Takehiko NAKAFUJI commented on the series of 'Night Crawler' 2005, he said,  'In the fictitious city you have carry imagination with you as currency'.
Takehiko NAKAFUJI is part of the great Japanese photographic tradition depicting the city in gritty black and white.  But for many years his work has concentrated on places like Eastern Europe and Russia rather than Japan.  Why did he not continue to photograph his native Tokyo, in which so many photographers find their inspiration?

Takehiko NAKAFUJI is a Tokyo boy, a drop-out from one of the top Tokyo universities. One day he showed me his pictures from Tokyo in the 1990s. These photographs are full of energy, voyeuristic, excited with anticipation of the potential pleasures of this city, especially the pleasures of the night.  We talked about showing his Tokyo work from his 1995 debut exhibition, and he restarted photographing his home city Tokyo after a gap of 15 years.
In his photographs from 2010. The mood is now dark and nightmarish, with hints of madness. Tokyo has changed. Takehiko NAKAFUJI has changed. And we the viewers have changed. The fizz of the great Japanese Bubble has gone flat.
Takehiko NAKAFUJI's photographs give us something insightful and unique. He express his conflicting feelings toward his native city. He made two intense portraits of Tokyo separated by 15 years, in which the city has metamorphosed from pleasure-dome to sunless sea." (publisher's note, © Zen Gallery, 2011)

"All is reduced to grains of black and white as if everything has been scratched by a coarse abrasive. Clumps of light and darkness cut sharply through the gaps in these grains. Of course the viewer is disturbed by this harsh perspective,  but somewhere there is also a nostalgic memory of the security of thew womb." (© Kotaro IISAWA)

About Japanese photographer, Takehiko NAKAFUJI (b.1970, in Tokyo)

Drop-out, Waseda University Literature Department. Graduated in Photography from Tokyo Visual Arts. Produced several monochrome photograph books from travels in Japan, Eastern Europe, Russia and Cuba. Active as photographer and as owner of Gallery Niepce in Yotsuya, Tokyo.

Photo books by Takehiko NAKAFUJI