Provoke (magazine)

Provoke (Purovōku, プロヴォーク), with its subtitle of Provocative Materials for Thought (Shisō no tame no chōhatsuteki shiryō 思想のための挑発的資料), was an experimental, small-press Japanese photography magazine founded in 1968 by critic/photographers Kōji Taki and Takuma Nakahira, photographer Yutaka Takanashi, and writer Takahiko Okada. Daidō Moriyama joined from the second issue. Provoke was "a platform for a new photographic expression", "to free photography from subservience to the language of words", "that stood in opposition to the photography establishment". It was a quarterly magazine that also included poetry, criticism and photographic theory. Provoke lasted for only three issues but has been described as having a "profound effect upon Japanese photography in the 1970s and 80s", and is said to have "spread a completely new idea of photography in Japan".