CRYSTAL LOVE STARLIGHT

Mayumi Hosokura
CRYSTAL LOVE STARLIGHT
Photographs: Mayumi Hosokura
Publisher: TYCOON BOOKS
64 pages
Year: 2014
Comments: Softcover, 25,3 x 20 cm. First edition of 500 copies. Some wears on both sides cover, kept in very good condition.
In 1992, the owners of Crystal Love Starlight were arrested for allegedly allowing prostitution in their restaurant in the Gunma prefecture of Japan; Mayumi Hosokura came across the case while looking through old copies of a local newspaper, Jomo, and was inspired by both the story and the restaurant’s trashy moniker.
The resulting series, also called “Crystal Love Starlight”, has been published by Tokyo-based Tycoon books.
“The charming meaninglessness of the flashy name – Crystal Love Starlight – and of the numerous snack bars, cabarets and love hotels throughout Japan appeals to me,” she says. “This series considers various aspects of urban life. I use images of nude girls and boys because I want to think about the gaze, especially the sexual gaze. The people in this series are the ‘anonymous youth’ and we can see them as us.”
It’s not the first time she’s shot nudes, or the transience of youth; in a previous series the Kyoto native combined softly lit nudes with hazy landscapes. This time she mixed nude studies shot in-studio in Tokyo with photographs of the restaurant, photographs of the hotels in Gunma, and images of the neon signs from the three-hour drive from Tokyo to Gunma.
“I wanted to look at Japanese suburbs and the ‘roadside-scape’ of national roads – it’s a very intimate landscape,” she says. “This region seemed to be a very good place to capture these roadside images, but I wanted to add a little bit of narrative, and for the viewer to confuse what is real and what is not.”
― from 1854















more books by Mayumi Hosokura
more books tagged »colors« | >> see all
-
Change
by Mikiko Hara
sold -
Self-Portraits
by Yurie Nagashima
sold -
Cagliari (Signed)
by Guy Tillim
sold -
Beyond Caring (Signed)
by Paul Graham
sold -
MÊME SOLEIL (SIGNED)
by Gaël Bonnefon
sold -
Vêpres laquées
by Collective
sold
more books tagged »nudes« | >> see all
-
123 POLAROIDS (Gray cover)
by Lin Zhipeng
Euro 35 -
Das ist ja zum Peepen
by Elisabeth B.
sold -
Adam and Eve (Signed)
by Nobuyuki Wakabayashi
Euro 1200 -
NAMI WO SAGASHITE (LOOKING FOR NAMI)
by Takashi Ishii
sold -
Strokes (Signed!)
by Tiane Doan na Champassak
sold -
Ikonta story (ASSOCIATION COPY WITH OBI)
by Nobuyoshi Araki
sold
more books tagged »japanese« | >> see all
-
Meet again (Signd copy)
by Koichi Inakoshi
Euro 400 -
Over the silence
by Jun Imajo
sold -
Record of Anger and Sadness
by Hiroshi Hamaya
Euro 400 -
Abstrait
by Hiroaki Suzuki
sold -
Still Heart Beating
by Wataru Hayakawa
sold -
Kono chijo ni wareware no kuni ha nai
by Collective
Euro 350
Books from the Virtual Bookshelf josefchladek.com