Benjo /Toilet

Yoshio Takase
Benjo /Toilet

Photographs: Yoshio Takase

Publisher: Fukusha Shudan Geribara 5

104 pages

Year: 1971

Comments: Softcover, 250 x 180 mm. First edition, 1971. Black & white photographs. Text in japanese. Included in The Photobook by Parr & Badger, vol.1, p.196. Minor wear. In very good condition.

Benjo/Toilet is one of the first publications of Geribara (litterally "geri" means "diarrhea" in japanese and "bara" "belly"), an avant-garde group of 5 artists which include Yoshio Takase, Ikeda Fukuo, Nobuyoshi Araki, Yaehata Koji & Morisawa Masmitsu. In this book, they make fun of common sense, for instance taking pictures of dirty toilets while it is common to think japanese toilets are clean. They also use absurd sentences, in a dada spirit, addressed to people : "Please let us touch your wonderful mask. Let us leak you. Geribara wants you to be kind to us even if it is not easy". Benjo is a joyfull cry of nonsense and a funny act of subculture.