Hitomi Wtanabe - 1968 Shinjuku - 2014

1968 Shinjuku

Hitomi Wtanabe
townhouse/2014/japanese/254 x 182 x 16 mm

I began taking these photographs in 1967.
Most of them were taken up to around 1969, when the Shinjuku West Exit "plaza" became a "passageway" after a rally called "folk guerrilla" by the media was cleared by riot police.
At that time, an editor took me to a bar called Unicon near Shinjuku Gyoen for the first time. After that, I went to Bizarre, which played modern jazz, Trevi, Kiba, DIG, DUG, and Pit Inn, which are still going strong today. I also attended Juro Karo's Red Tent at Hanazono Shrine, avant-garde films at ATG, and happenings (performances) on the street before the pedestrian paradise was built. ......
It was in Shinjuku that I first encountered the term "underground," and it was also around this time that I encountered the "rariri" hootenanny of the underground.
Shinjuku, not Shibuya, Shimokitazawa, or Kichijoji, was the culture.
One night, as these days continued, I came across a crowd of people in the Shinjuku area. It was "10.21 International Anti-War Day. As I was jostled by the demonstrators, I experienced with my whole body what the Vietnam War, which I had only known about as information, had brought.

In Shinjuku in 1968, the era was summed up.

Excerpt from the afterword

This is not a photograph of the past, but of the present. -Nobuyoshi Araki, excerpt from his letter of recommendation