Nobuyoshi Araki

The latest collaboration between these two seminal photographers, Leben und Tod is the culmination of their joint exhibition at artspace AM, Tokyo, in 2019. This intensely personal project concentrates on Juergen Teller’s (born 1964) series Leben und Tod (Life and Death), which reflects upon the death of his uncle and stepfather Artur, juxtaposing photographs of his mother and homeland in Bubenreuth, Bavaria, with symbolic images of fertility and life on holiday in Bhutan with his partner Dovile Drizyte.

Inspired by this series, Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940) asked to photograph Teller’s “childhood memory objects,” items of particular emotional significance to him and his parents. Teller eagerly collected such personal gems, among them toys, a porcelain figurine and bridges made in the family’s violin workshop; the resulting images by Araki are haunting yet playful, creating an intriguing narrative alongside the original story.

Araki is known the world over for his controversial erotic portraits of Japanese women, often bound using the kinbaku (Japanese bondage) technique. A unique figure in contemporary photography, he has always found creative inspiration in his daily existence, without making any distinction between his personal life and public and professional practice.

The Araki Effect offers a broad overview of his career: from the first series from 1963–65, Satchin and His Brother Mabo, to Subway of Love, a large collection of images taken in the Tokyo subway between 1963 and 1972, the year he also made Autumn in Tokyo, which recounts the autumn he spent wandering through the city in the twilight hours. These are followed by Sentimental Night in Kyoto, less known than the famous Sentimental Journey, both tributes to his wife, Yoko; Balcony of Love, Death Reality, Tokyo Diary from 2017, and one of his latest collections, Araki's Paradise from 2019.

Born in Tokyo in 1940, Nobuyoshi Araki worked at an advertising agency in the 1960s, where he met his future wife, Yoko Araki, the subject of his now classic volume Sentimental Journey. Araki's oeuvre spans erotic portraits of women, still lifes, images of plants, scenes of everyday life and architectural photography. He has published around 400 books, shown in many international exhibitions and his work is part of important collections worldwide. Araki lives and works in Tokyo.

In a limited edition of 1,000, nestled in a jewelry-box-proportioned precious object itself protected by a larger canvas and acetate container, 100 never-before-published Polaroids, taken by erotic master Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940), divide their surfaces between images of women and images of the sky. Polarnography collects these objects, box and photographs, in perfect facsimile of their originals. The juxtapositions Araki assembles on the surface of these Polaroids match each other in shapes and colors: lucid clear skies, stark flash on nude skin or fiery overcast sunsets, the mingling of confrontation and vulnerability in bondage. This manifestation of Araki's work is unique in the photographer's otherwise prolific output, as an object to either hide or display, not content to remain inert on the collector's bookshelf.

This book combines Araki’s early Tokyo series with a selection of his recent Polaroid collages and newly developed slide shows—all of them exploring the contradictions between anonymity and intimacy, the public and private sphere, reality and dream.

Araki is one of the most influential and widely discussed artists today, legendary for his radical and realistic treatment of nudity, sexuality and the body. Together with Nan Goldin, Larry Clark and Boris Mikhailov, Araki is considered one of the pioneers of intimate subjective photography.

Born in Tokyo in 1940, Nobuyoshi Araki worked in advertising after completing his studies in photography and film at Chiba University in Tokyo; he devoted himself exclusively to photography from the mid-1960s. Araki’s oeuvre spans erotic portraits of women, artificial still lifes, images of plants, documentary-style depictions of everyday life, and architectural photography, as well as diaristic photos of himself and his deceased wife, Yoko. He has published around 400 books, shown in many international exhibitions and his work is part of important collections worldwide. Araki lives and works in Tokyo.

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary in 2014, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain asked Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki to take a photograph every day, which would then be published weekly on its website as a slide show. Caught up in the task, Araki took more than one picture a day from March to May 2014, producing 1,250 color photographs featuring views of Tokyo, portraits of young women, sensual still-lifes, or shots taken at restaurants or in a small bar in the district of Kabuki-cho, one of his favorite spots. The Fondation Cartier collated all the images into one book, Hi-Nikki (Non-Diary Diary), offering a sumptuous showcase of this rich digital project and inviting the reader to dive into the daily life of a prolific artist.