From Provoke 3 (1969) by Kōji Taki

Untitled (1968) by Takuma Nakahira

Untitled (Toshi-e ) (1969) by Yutaka Takanashi

Stray Dog, Misawa, Aomori (1971) by Daidō Moriyama

Shinjuku, Tokyo (1969) by Shomei Tomatsu

Still from Godspeed You! Black Emperor (1976) by Mitsuo Yanagimachi

From Sentimental Journey (1971) by Nobuyoshi Araki

I want to take Nasty photos. Daidō Moriyama

Are-Bureh-Bokeh, translated from Japanese, means “grainy/rough, blurry, out of focus”. This is not to be confused with bokeh, which indicates something else entirely. My first encounter with Are-Bureh-Bokeh has been documented, along with my own attempts at the craft.

Japan, like other nations during the 1960s, was going through a period of social unrest. Due to American occupation after World War II, there was a breakdown of traditional values. Large corporations took hold of daily life, and the government was emphatic about its neo-liberal agenda.

However, unlike other nations, Japan had to contend with complete and utter devastation wrought by the atomic bomb. If the world has ever been close to the apocalypse, the Japanese surely had front row seats.

Capturing this civil unrest was Provoke (プロヴォーク) magazine, a journal that sought “to free photography from subservience to the language of words”. Its subtitle on the cover was “Provocative documents for the sake of thought”. While there was often poetry and criticism within its pages, most photography was without comment.

Indeed, Provoke’s manifesto stated that photography needed no words, that what it could express was so important, it could speak without need of language. It assumed we lived in an uncertain world. “What is seeing?” was its fundamental question.

It should be stressed that Are-Bureh-Bokeh didn’t appear out of a vacuum. Domestic influences were filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and writer Yukio Mishima — both artists who dabbled in Film Noir. Are-Bureh-Bokeh was also meant to inspire and express rebellion, or at least a rebellious feeling.

Ultimately, Are-Bureh-Bokeh succeeds at expressing the inexpressable. This is why its ideas have found a home worldwide. Its spirit has proved an unstoppable force.

Sizz cannot exist without Are-Bureh-Bokeh, as is true with Expressionism and Noir. People across the world have synthesized these three nexus to create something starkly beautiful. This is why I document it.