Asakusa.

Tokyo: Zen Photo Gallery, 20110. First edition. One of 1000 copies. This copy if one of the 50 numbered and specially bound copies that includse a separate black silk portfolio containing a signed and numbered Goede silver gelatin print (the print herein show a Japanese woman with her robe lowered to display her whole back tattoo of a Buddhist boddhisatva). Quarto 8 x 10 1/2 inches). 216 pages bearing 154 photographic images with text in English and Japanese. Japanese stitched binding in a red cloth portfolio with the same image as the silver gelatin inset on the front. All housed in the publisher's slipcase with a cherry blossom motif. Ass new, plastic covering still present.Asakusa is a photographic diary of the days Ronin spent photographing the work of Japanese master tattoo artist Horikazu and the clients who hire him. As Japan has historically been and continues to be a country where tattoos remain closely associated with the criminal underworld, following Horikazu’s work – his specialty being the full-body tattoo – slowly allowed de Goede entry to the world of the yakuza, a place not very welcoming to foreigners. Most of the images are of tattoos by the reigning doyen of the art, Horikazu, but quite a few just show the yakuza going about their business. A fascinating look into a hidden world.