KW284 (S44)

Katsumi Watanabe worked from the 1960s into the 1980s as an itinerant portrait photographer of patrons and workers at gay bars, nightclubs, and brothels, which Watanabe also frequented for pleasure. He confined his activities to the Shinjuku neighborhood of Tokyo. This theater, shopping, and red-light district was a crucible of individual and collective revolt in the years around 1970. For the images he sold to his subjects, Watanabe typically printed in color, but for publication and exhibition—as in this case—he made the prints in black and white, considering that to be more dignified.