Photography change the way we see.
Different subject matter from Nobuyoshi Araki.
Nobuyoshi Araki, contemporary Japanese photographer who represented the way of Japanese Erotic photography. Araki’s images there is a sense of something ‘else’ transmitting an arresting and ominous quality behind even the most conventional of Japanese fetish. His images of flowers and women, in particular, are darkly erotic; he presents a perverse vision of beauty with a scent of contradiction in society. His works all about movement and restlessness, even though he returns again and again to the same fixations.
Araki connects love and feeling through photographs. His photography explores the relationship between life, death and sexuality. He photographs especially of women. The way he approaches women is very different from others. He prefer to photographs prostitute rather than models, I think because he wants to make something raw and presents reality.
For me, Araki is utterly beyond the pale especially depictions of women : women in Kimonos bound and suspended in bondage, women’s bodies smeared with what appears to be blood (in fact, it is paint), women masturbating, women with lipstick and cigarettes, women with Araki’s bestiary of plastic dinosaurs and lizards. If he shoots model, his photos will not be raw and natural like his own photos. He has the same style as other photographers but he photographs different subjects create different meanings and their meaning of prostitutes symbolizes all the charming and essential sides of life.
Even the photos of his wife that he has taken, all of them have lots of meaning between relationship, sex and death. He has one collection about his wife, Yoko. It was about photos of her death when they went to travel together. And every time when Araki taken her photos, it’s like he knew as if she was gradually dying from uterus cancer. I think it was not only about capturing the image of a woman but also the portrait of a relationship.
He said “Maybe I only had a relationship with her as a photographer, not as a partner. If I hadn’t documented her death, both the description of my state of mind and my declaration of love would have been incomplete. I found consolation in unmasking lust and loss, by staging a bitter confrontation between symbols. After Yoko’s death, I didn’t want to photograph anything but life – honestly. Yet every time I pressed button, I ended up close to death, because to photograph is to stop time.” He went on. “Photography is like a murder for me and Yoko’s”.
Araki has escaped real persecution by tethering the limits of what is tolerated, stretching without breaking the rules, and playing the rebel without constituting a serious threat. If Araki didn’t exist, the system would have had to invent him. Araki has said “Women always go home ‘happy’ after I take their picture. I truss them up or shave them. Ha ha ha. Then I get love letters, saying, ‘It was a happy day for me’.”
Araki has lots of exhibitions in his works. I have seen one of his exhibitions last year in Thailand. His works was relating to what artists look through Thailand. He had taken photos with Thai prostitutes. That makes me love his work completely. He never gets away from his strong identity even he has been to Thailand! And his images made me stop and look at their images for a little longer in the exhibition.
Araki’s art cheers me up. Quite often, it turns me on. It is delightful, sad, truthful, and its playfulness is a great antidote to self-pity. It is an injunction to make more of the things in life matter; love of life and its complexity most of all in the knowledge that one day it will all end. The shutter stops time, but only for a moment.
Different subject matter from Nobuyoshi Araki.
Nobuyoshi Araki, contemporary Japanese photographer who represented the way of Japanese Erotic photography. Araki’s images there is a sense of something ‘else’ transmitting an arresting and ominous quality behind even the most conventional of Japanese fetish. His images of flowers and women, in particular, are darkly erotic; he presents a perverse vision of beauty with a scent of contradiction in society. His works all about movement and restlessness, even though he returns again and again to the same fixations.
Araki connects love and feeling through photographs. His photography explores the relationship between life, death and sexuality. He photographs especially of women. The way he approaches women is very different from others. He prefer to photographs prostitute rather than models, I think because he wants to make something raw and presents reality.
For me, Araki is utterly beyond the pale especially depictions of women : women in Kimonos bound and suspended in bondage, women’s bodies smeared with what appears to be blood (in fact, it is paint), women masturbating, women with lipstick and cigarettes, women with Araki’s bestiary of plastic dinosaurs and lizards. If he shoots model, his photos will not be raw and natural like his own photos. He has the same style as other photographers but he photographs different subjects create different meanings and their meaning of prostitutes symbolizes all the charming and essential sides of life.
Even the photos of his wife that he has taken, all of them have lots of meaning between relationship, sex and death. He has one collection about his wife, Yoko. It was about photos of her death when they went to travel together. And every time when Araki taken her photos, it’s like he knew as if she was gradually dying from uterus cancer. I think it was not only about capturing the image of a woman but also the portrait of a relationship.
He said “Maybe I only had a relationship with her as a photographer, not as a partner. If I hadn’t documented her death, both the description of my state of mind and my declaration of love would have been incomplete. I found consolation in unmasking lust and loss, by staging a bitter confrontation between symbols. After Yoko’s death, I didn’t want to photograph anything but life – honestly. Yet every time I pressed button, I ended up close to death, because to photograph is to stop time.” He went on. “Photography is like a murder for me and Yoko’s”.
Araki has escaped real persecution by tethering the limits of what is tolerated, stretching without breaking the rules, and playing the rebel without constituting a serious threat. If Araki didn’t exist, the system would have had to invent him. Araki has said “Women always go home ‘happy’ after I take their picture. I truss them up or shave them. Ha ha ha. Then I get love letters, saying, ‘It was a happy day for me’.”
Araki has lots of exhibitions in his works. I have seen one of his exhibitions last year in Thailand. His works was relating to what artists look through Thailand. He had taken photos with Thai prostitutes. That makes me love his work completely. He never gets away from his strong identity even he has been to Thailand! And his images made me stop and look at their images for a little longer in the exhibition.
Araki’s art cheers me up. Quite often, it turns me on. It is delightful, sad, truthful, and its playfulness is a great antidote to self-pity. It is an injunction to make more of the things in life matter; love of life and its complexity most of all in the knowledge that one day it will all end. The shutter stops time, but only for a moment.
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