CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/8/2019

Collectors take note of this beautiful new 'Kohei Yoshiyuki: The Park' ltd ed

Photo book lovers rejoice! One of Luc Sante's top eight Holiday Gift Photography Books of 2019, Kohei Yoshiyuki's infamous, voyeuristic collection of 1970s nocturnal infrared photographs, The Park, has just come out in a stunning limited edition from Radius Books and Yossi Milo. Published in an edition of 500 signed copies, this deluxe volume comes packaged with a facsimile reproduction of the 1980 Japanese publication Document Koen (Document Park), where Yoshiyuki first collected his infrared photographs of couples engaged in sexual activity in the park at night, knowingly or unknowingly watched by peeping toms. "Infrared can make skin look spectral, which does nothing to diminish the furtive aspect of the entire enterprise," Sante writes. "The pictures share a quality with certain tripwire-activated photos of wildlife after dark: leaping deer under surveillance. The blacks are inky, although there are layers to the darkness; some pictures reward close viewing with murky outlines of yet more peepers farther back. The photos are staggeringly strange."