The Park + Document Koen (Limited Edition) — Kohei Yoshiyuki

This is the definitive edition of Kohei Yoshiyuki’s notorious series, pairing the original 1980 Document Koen with The Park, a newly designed facsimile that reopens the archive of one of Japan’s most controversial and cultishly studied photographic works. Shot in the 1970s across Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Yoyogi, and Aoyama parks using 35mm infrared film and flash, Yoshiyuki’s images reveal a hidden nocturnal ecosystem of lovers, voyeurs, and drifting figures of every sexuality and age. The photographer’s presence is never neutral—his camera aligned with those who watched, or sometimes joined, anonymous couplings in the dark. With their stark, raw composition, these photographs occupy a tense space between documentary and transgression, recalling Brassaï’s Paris de Nuit, Weegee’s flash-lit cinemas, and Sophie Calle’s meditations on looking and being seen. What they ultimately expose is not simply secret behaviour, but the shared complicity of desire. This slipcased edition of 500 includes both the facsimile of Document Koen and a new monograph featuring unpublished material and contextual texts, situating Yoshiyuki’s work as a lens on voyeurism, urban anonymity, and the melancholy of surveillance.

Technical Sheet
Title: The Park + Document Koen (Limited Edition)
Artist / Author: Kohei Yoshiyuki
Date: 2023 (facsimile), originally 1980
Edition: 500
Technique / Printing Method: Offset
Medium / Materials: Hardcover with silver gelatin print reproduction, slipcased box
Dimensions (cm): 22 × 29
Language: Japanese, English
Pages: 112 (The Park), facsimile of original Document Koen
Publisher / Editor: Session Press, Goliga
Condition: NEW