Crystal Love Starlight

Crystal Love Starlight is a photobook by Mayumi Hosokura named for a small restaurant in Gunma prefecture that came to light in 1992 for running illicit prostitution.

Josef Chladek’s listing reproduces Hosokura’s statement that the series has three parts: pictures of the place itself, nude portraits made in Tokyo and in Gunma hotels, and neon signs along Route 17, which connects the two locations. She says the images were printed from monochrome film and then colored with six-color silver halide crystals and dye couplers on photographic color paper. Setanta Books adds that Hosokura found the case in the archives of a local newspaper, and that the short article is reprinted at the back. Chladek lists Tycoon Books, Tokyo, 2014, as a softcover in an edition of 500 signed copies, designed by Kei Sakawaki.

Hosokura was born in Kyoto in 1979 and lives and works in Tokyo, according to Blindspot Gallery. Blindspot lists this book among her publications alongside Kazan (Artbeat Publishers, 2012) and Transparency Is the New Mystery (MACK, 2016).