Background
Nobuyoshi Araki was born on March 25, 1940, in Tokyo, Japan.
Chiba University, Chiba, Japan
Nobuyoshi Araki completed his studies at Chiba University’s Department of Photography, Printing, and Engineering with a focus on the study of film and photography in 1963.
(Collection of photographs of Tokyo's sex shops and clubs ...)
Collection of photographs of Tokyo's sex shops and clubs and the women who work there; taken between 1983 and 1985 by photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3822881899/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(Nobuyoshi Araki is an internationally acclaimed photograp...)
Nobuyoshi Araki is an internationally acclaimed photographer whose erotically charged work has put him at the forefront of contemporary Japanese photography. This volume is dedicated to images of Araki's favorite model, Shino, and presents her in Araki's classic style. She appears clothed and unclothed, bound by ropes, in the bath, indoors and out, all with his signature cinematic touch. Featuring over 70 images in both color and black and white, Shino is sure to appeal to Araki's legion of fans.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4766111931/?tag=2022091-20
2002
(Araki by Araki is a record of the career of Nobuyoshi Ara...)
Araki by Araki is a record of the career of Nobuyoshi Araki, self-styled "photomaniac" and permanent enfant terrible of the Japanese art world. Published to mark the artist's sixty-third birthday on May 25, 2003, this volume features 2002 photographs covering his entire career from 1963 to 2002. Sex-trade voyeur, recorder of Tokyo cityscapes, chronicler of married life, or experimental photo artist - no matter what your image of Araki, this collection will reveal new aspects of his talent, as it traces his unique vision over forty prolific years. All the pictures were selected by Araki himself (who also provides an original commentary), making Araki by Araki not only a comprehensive but highly personal overview of the artist's work to date. High-quality color and duotone black and white printing ensure the highest standard of reproduction throughout.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4770029381/?tag=2022091-20
2003
(Two celebrated masters of Japanese photography with very ...)
Two celebrated masters of Japanese photography with very different individual visions return to a part of Tokyo which has played a central part in their work, Shinjuku. The photographs which resulted from their series of visits are compiled in this beautifully produced exhibition catalogue, overflowing with full-page reproductions, essays, and observations and a delightful conversation between Moriyama and Araki.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4582277578/?tag=2022091-20
2005
(From 1963 until 1972, the young Nobuyoshi Araki obsessive...)
From 1963 until 1972, the young Nobuyoshi Araki obsessively photographed his fellow passengers during his daily commute on the Tokyo subway. Yawning businessmen, women dozing with their legs splayed, kids who mugged for the camera-Araki captured them all candidly on film, without using a viewfinder. Now, over thirty years later, Subway Love brings back to life these vital and various "prisoners" crammed into their subway cars. Included is an interview with Araki, who explains the essence of documentary: "to gaze unflinchingly at a thing for a long time." The brilliant and controversial Nobuyoshi Araki is one of Japan's leading photographers.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4896841409/?tag=2022091-20
2006
(Tracing Nobuyoshi Araki’s career, this volume comprises a...)
Tracing Nobuyoshi Araki’s career, this volume comprises a collection of emblematic photographs (one per day), a new series of nudes and elegant female portraits and a number of "stories" set in traditional Japan. Alongside these serial works are portraits and street photographs taken in the 1960s and 1970s. With these works, Araki records Japanese society during its period of intense economic growth. His new flower compositions and the classic bondage series are also included, which are responsible for making him famous throughout the world.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/886130298X/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(This retrospective pays tribute to a truly distinctive ph...)
This retrospective pays tribute to a truly distinctive photographer. With academic training in photography and a professional background in advertising, Nobuyoshi Araki's subject matter is wide-ranging and incredibly diverse. Blending the careful composition of traditional Japanese culture with his own frenetic energy, Araki's work is compelling and controversial. Many of his works are erotically charged, yet, with a true artist's sensibility, he brings something original to each composition. Undoubtedly one of the most prolific artists of any age, this portfolio challenges our most fundamental assumptions.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3570198464/?tag=2022091-20
2009
(Araki, a key iconoclast of great talent, is one of the mo...)
Araki, a key iconoclast of great talent, is one of the most prolific photographers of his time. Having already published several hundreds of books and thousands of pictures, Araki has indeed for over fifty years revolutionized the world of photography. His outlook is both sentimental and filled with energy, whereby the Erotos (a combination of Eros and Thanatos) appears in every image. Araki is photography. His practice lies at the heart of his existence, the camera being an extension of his own self. Araki offers us a peculiarly dark body of work.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9881607914/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(First published as a limited edition and now available as...)
First published as a limited edition and now available as a standard TASCHEN edition, the curation delves deep into Araki's best-known imagery: Tokyo street scenes; faces and foods; colorful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As girls lay bound but defiant and glistening petals assume suggestive shapes, Araki plays constantly with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire and with the slippage between serene image and shock. Describing his bondage photographs as ‘a collaboration between the subject and the photographer’, Araki seeks to come closer to his female subjects through photography, emphasizing the role of spoken conversation between himself and the model. In his native Japan, he has attained cult status for many women who feel liberated by his readiness to photograph the expression of their desire.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3836551128/?tag=2022091-20
2018
(This book combines Araki’s early Tokyo series with a sele...)
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.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3958295533/?tag=2022091-20
2019
経惟 荒木
Nobuyoshi Araki was born on March 25, 1940, in Tokyo, Japan.
Nobuyoshi Araki completed his studies at Chiba University’s Department of Photography, Printing, and Engineering with a focus on the study of film and photography in 1963.
Nobuyoshi Araki's photographic project “Satchin” earned him the prestigious Taiyo Award in 1964, shortly after he had joined the advertising agency Dentsu, where he worked until 1972. Two events pivotal to Araki’s life and work took place in the late 1960s: his father died in 1967, and he met his future wife, Yoko Aoki, then working as a typist at Dentsu, the following year. Death and love would become two of the principal driving forces behind Araki’s profoundly human photography, and Yoko would become Araki’s most frequent photographic subject. The couple wed in 1971 and embarked on a honeymoon, which Araki extensively photographed. With its narrative style, personal tone, and vernacular aesthetic, the resulting volume - Sentimental Journey (1971) - is regarded as one of the most important Japanese photobooks of the twentieth century. Araki’s growing success as a photographer allowed him to leave Dentsu to focus solely on his artistic career in 1972.
In 1981, Araki directed High School Girl Fake Diary, a roman porno film for the studio Nikkatsu. The film proved to be a disappointment both to Araki's fans and to fans of the pink film genre.
Araki has referred to his wide-ranging and eclectic work as “I-photography,” after the “I-novel,” a Japanese confessional literary genre often written in the first person. His unwavering concentration on his own life and experiences - sexual and otherwise - pushed against the dominant documentary photographic aesthetic, epitomized by such figures as Hiroshi Hamaya, as well as the are, bure, boke (grainy, blurry, and out-of-focus) aesthetic of the Provoke movement, prevalent in Japanese avant-garde photography beginning in the late 1960s. Araki tackled these approaches head-on in his series Pseudo-Reportage. The related photobook, published in 1980, pairs these quasi-documentary pictures with misleading captions, underscoring the problematic nature of photographic veracity.
After Yoko passed away, in 1990, Araki began a host of new projects, even using his own diagnosis with prostate cancer in 2008 as a jumping-off point to explore the diminishing status of analog photography. 2THESKY, my Ender (2009) consists of photographs covered with salt, which will cause the object to deteriorate over time, mirroring the physical decline of the photographer himself. While he was not included in the landmark exhibition New Japanese Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1974, organized by John Szarkowski and Shoji Yamagishi, he was included in Yamagishi’s second exhibition collaboration in the United States, Japan: A Self-Portrait at the International Center of Photography in New York in 1979. Araki gained international exposure in Europe prior to this, participating in Neue Fotografie aus Japan at the Kulturhaus der Stadt, Graz, Austria, his first group show outside Japan, in 1977. His first international solo show took place in 1992: Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991 at the Forum Stadtpark, Graz.
Nobuyoshi Araki did a bondage-themed photoshoot with Lady Gaga for Vogue Hommes Japan. Araki later released an art-book with further photos from the shoot, however, it was limited to 500 copies.
By 2019 Araki has published over 500 books.
(First published as a limited edition and now available as...)
2018(This book combines Araki’s early Tokyo series with a sele...)
2019(Tracing Nobuyoshi Araki’s career, this volume comprises a...)
2008(Two celebrated masters of Japanese photography with very ...)
2005(Nobuyoshi Araki is an internationally acclaimed photograp...)
2002(Collection of photographs of Tokyo's sex shops and clubs ...)
1997(Araki by Araki is a record of the career of Nobuyoshi Ara...)
2003(From 1963 until 1972, the young Nobuyoshi Araki obsessive...)
2006(Street scenes of Tokyo contrasted with occasional female ...)
1990(Araki, a key iconoclast of great talent, is one of the mo...)
2016(This retrospective pays tribute to a truly distinctive ph...)
2009Lady Gaga
2009Lady Gaga
2009Lady Gaga
2009Lady Gaga
2009Untitled
1990For Robert Frank
1992Sans titre
1995Bondage/Araki Gold
1992Kinbaku
2000Lady Gaga
2009Erotos
1993Polaroid
2000Polaroid
2000Lady Gaga
2009Lady Gaga
2009Angel's Festival
1992Kinbaku (Bondage)
1989Tokyo Comedy (Clouds)
1997Eros
2006Lady Gaga
2009Eros and Thanatos (sex and death) have been a central theme in Araki’s work; an abiding fascination with female genitalia and women’s bodies in Japanese bondage, flowers, food, his cat, faces and Tokyo street scenes. Araki’s wry, irreverent work, frequently employing sexual subject matter, has often ignited controversy and earned him a degree of notoriety. The frenetic nature of his photographs, which he tends to shoot with very little preparation, is emblematic of the Japanese experience of World War II and its chaotic aftermath.
Araki is known for his intimate access to models. When he was asked about this in 2011, he bragged that he gained that through sex. In April 2018, Kaori, a model who posed for Araki from 2001 to 2016, made a blog post about her relationship with him. In the blog post, she accused him of financial and artistic exploitation. Kaori stated that "she worked without a contract, was forced to take part in explicit shoots in front of strangers, was not regularly paid and that her nude images were often used without her consent." In 2017, when being requested to stop republishing or exhibiting some photographs of her, Araki wrote to Kaori, warning that she had no rights. The entire experience led her to considerable trauma and ill health. Kaori stated that the Me Too movement had encouraged her to speak out. The accusations have raised questions about the power dynamics between a photographer and his subject. In December 2018, the activist group Angry Asian Girls Association protested the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Araki at C/O Berlin to raise awareness for Kaori's claims.
Physical Characteristics: In October 2013, Araki lost the vision in his right eye due to a retinal artery obstruction.
Nobuyoshi Araki was married to a Japanese essayist Yōko Aoki since 1971 up to her death in 1990.