Araki-All Women Are Beautiful - Ecatalogue [PDF]

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Nobuyoshi Araki: All Women are Beautiful

Nobuyoshi Araki: All Women are Beautiful

September 7 to October 23, 2011 Galerie Steph Ooi Botos

the love of life by Charles Merewether

The photography of Nobuyoshi Araki is, in a number of respects, exceptional. In fact, if we survey the histories of postwar or contemporary art in Japan or that of Japanese photography, he is barely given reference. And yet, as a photographer, he has produced more than three hundred and fifty photography books over the past forty years. Moreover, Araki can be credited as one of the first of the generation of the Nineteen Seventies to develop the idea of ‘personal photography,’ in which the photographer and subject were inextricably linked. This idea is explored succinctly by Iizawa Kōtarō. In his essay ‘The Evolution of Postwar Photography,’ he places Araki amongst others, as exponents of a more personal style of photography, albeit differently amongst themselves.1 We should also consider the environment of rapid industrialization and a developing mass culture. This became palpable in

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the character and tempo of modern life in Japan. Both of these factors converge in the figure of Araki. At the same time, Araki developed his practice in a milieu in which professional photography was significant and highly visible. As a young man, he grew up in the midst of older artists and photographers who had a profound influence on him. In particular, both Takuma Nakahira and Daido Moriyama and the group around the magazine Provoke were of critical importance because of their visceral engagement with their subject matter, especially the subject of the street and the expressive character of individual lives.2 The year Nineteen Seventy was a turning point that was captured by the contradictory politics of Expo ’70 in Osaka. This was not least due to the rampant commercialization that was made of the

event and the consequent abandonment by some of the leading architects, and both the visual and performing artists. In fact, Expo ’70 marked the end of an era that had seen the rise of an extraordinary group of photographers, alongside others across all fields of the arts, who had explored and captured the rise of Tokyo from the ashes of the Atomic Bomb.3 The Seventies then marked a turn to more personal subjects in the face of an increasingly anonymous city and the human subject retreated behind the industrial fabric and repressive State – controlled structures of a mass culture. This is partially reflected in the early Araki photographs, such as the Subway series that, made between 19631972, depict the everyday life of ordinary people. In the Sixties, the work of Moriyama and others had opened a path for Araki in regard to the

subject of nakedness. A number of photographers had published photo essays in many of the popular photography magazines of the era. They were not pornographic but, rather, emanated a form of innocent delight in the portrayal of women, liberated - as if in their nudity - from the dictates of urban living. There was something here that resonated with the Western idea of the ‘counter-culture’ movement of the period. By the mid Sixties, the world around them was rapidly and violently changing.4 This was reflected in the work of both Nakahira and Moriyama who depicted the grim and almost soulless urbanscape of people living especially on the bleak and barren edges of the city or the semi-industrial wastelands. Their aim was, as stated in the first issue of Provoke, to capture and confront “the world in its naked state.” The image of people included illicit encounters between men and women. One of the most powerful series of

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work that was produced for Provoke 2 by Moriyama, was a series of a naked woman in an apartment and on her bed waiting for a customer. There is, in essence, nothing extraordinary about the images, nothing provocative but rather a picture of the everyday, of its uncertainty. This is precisely the point of the photographs, evoking a wistful sense of melancholy. The photographic work of Araki begins with The Sentimental Journey (1971), an account of his honeymoon with his newly wed wife the essayist Yoko Araki. This book along with a book Winter Journey made just before her death in 1990 and in her memory, become melancholic eulogies of her life and their relationship. This event will haunt Araki’s life and shape his sensibility. Throughout his years as a photographer, Araki has developed a continuous exploration of women in the privacy of their own home and in his city Tokyo. He has rarely made photographs outside of Tokyo. They are neither photographs of the

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street nor of bars or public places yet, nonetheless, they are what Araki often refers to as ‘my Tokyo.’ The photographs are about individual woman, their bodies, their exposure to another, to the outside. Often they occur as a result of requests from the women themselves. These photographs are neither pornographic nor sexual. Rather, they are intimate portraits and one can feel a kind of intoxication that comes from this contact. There is a beauty to their face and their expression, a kind of poetry to the generosity that they offer to the photographer. This personal exchange counters what we can refer to as the growing solitude of a culture becoming anonymous, losing a sense of the individual, the neighbor, each other. Araki photographs every day in a manner that is diaristic. This approach – a personal event he notes – belongs to the present or constitutes the present, even though at the same time, it falls as an interregnum between the past that has passed and the future that is to come. This moment is precious and a fragile moment, a moment that is transient, appearing, disappearing. It allows us to

appreciate better Araki’s photographs of flowers that are often associated with women. As with women, the photographs of flowers offer a sense of frailty as to their beauty and transience that intimates their death. Jean Genet understood this association and sentiment. It is not the disclosure of death to come – as of Roland Barthes – but the very opposite, the vitality of life today, now, at this moment: that is all. In interviews with Araki, he has noted that the camera for him displaces memory and becomes

associated with death. This resonates with the death of Yoko. The photographs of clouds, and of what he refers to as skyscapes, begin to appear after his wife’s death in a number of his photo-books. The clouds appear to offer a form of life that symbolizes transience as they pass across the fathomless sky above. And yet, nonetheless, this space is as Araki suggests, the domain of the spirit. In this space the imagination is set free, a space in which to dream and the promise of desire and of death meet.

Notes 1

See Iizawa Kōtarō, ‘The Evolution of Postwar Photography’ in The History of Japanese Photography, edited by Anne Wilkes Tucker and others. (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2003), pp. 222-225.

2 Provoke existed for only three issues (between November 1968 – August 1969) and was edited by Taki Koji, Nakahira Takuma, Okada Takahiko and Takanashi Yukata. Moriyama joined them in the second issue. After they stopped the magazine, two important books followed, first by the Provoke group ‘First Discard the World of Pseudo-Certainty’ (1970) and by Nakahira For a Language to Come (1970). 3 See Art Anti-Art Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan, s1950-1970, Edited Charles Merewether with Rika Hiro, (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute) 2007. 4

For extensive discussion, see Fn. 3.

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“Novel Photograph”

1995, Fuji Crystal RP Print, 20 x 24 inches / 50.8 x 60 cm

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“67 Shooting Back”

2007, RP Direct Print, 20 x 24 in / 50.8 x 60 cm

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“Lewd Painting”

2011, RP Direct Print, 19.7 x 18 in / 56 x 45.7 cm

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“Pola Eros”

2006-2009, Polaroid, unique, 4.3 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.8 cm

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“Sky”

2006-2009, Polaroid, unique, 4.3 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.8 cm

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“Pola Nostalgia”

2011, Polaroid, unique, 4.3 x 3.5 in / 10.8 x 8.8 cm

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Nobuyoshi Araki b. Tokyo, Japan 1940

Selected solo exhibitions

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2011

“Film Nostalgia”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

2010

“Ai no Jikan”, Leica Ginza Salon, Tokyo “Koki No Shashin : Photographs of A Seventy Year Old”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

2009

“2THESKY, my Ender”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “The Faces of Japan” Project HIROSHIMA by Nobuyoshi Araki”, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima “69YK”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

2008

“KOSHOKU PAINTING”, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo “Hana Kinbaku”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo



“B/W bondage”, Jablonka Galerie Berlin, Berlin

2007

“ARAKI GOLD”, l’Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, Roma “67 Shooting Back”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

2006

“TOKYO JINSEI”, Edo Tokyo Museum, Tokyo “SHIKI IN ME”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki “, Galeria Enrique Guerrero, Mexico D.F., Mexico

2005

Life Like – the World of Photography by Nobuyoshi Araki: “Flowers by Araki”, epSITE, EPSON IMAGING GALLERY, Singapore “Wanted: Dead and Alive - Works by the Genius Photo-maniac, Nobuyoshi Araki”, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) Singapore “NOBUYOSHI ARAKI: Self, Life, Death”, Art Galleries, Barbican Centre, London “Nobuyoshi Araki Tokyo Nude”, Yoshii Gallery, New York “Kaori”, Reflex New Art Gallery, Amsterdam

2004

“From Winter to Spring”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “Painting Flower”, epSITE, EPSON IMAGING GALLERY, Tokyo

2003

“ARAKI BY ARAKI” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “Hana-Jinsei” Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography “Tokyo Still Life” Tampere Art Museum, Tampere, Finland

2002

“Nobuyoshi Araki” Jablonka Galerie, Köln “Suicide in Tokyo” Italian Pavilion, Venice “Shosetsu Seoul” Artium, Fukuoka

2001

“Tokyo Still Life” Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK “Pola”, Low, Los Angeles

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“Shosetsu Seoul” Spiral Hall, Tokyo “Shikijo kyo” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “Flower Shadow” Gallery Artgraph, Tokyo

2000

“Viaggio Sentimental” Centro Perl’arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy “Arakinema: Kurumado” Pecci, Prato “Polaevacy” Nadiff, Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki” Low, Los Angeles “Shashin Shijyo Shugi” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki” Stedellik Museum voor Actuelle Kunst, Gent, Belgium “Nobuyoshi Araki” Galerie Almine Rech, Paris “Nobuyoshi Araki” Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris “Nobuyoshi Araki” Damasquine Art Gallery, Bruxelle, Belgium

1999

“Arakinema: A’s Paradise” Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo “ARAKI Nobuyoshi Sentimental Photography, Sentimental Life” Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki” Scalo Art Space, New York “RYUSEKI” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo “ALive” Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Grand Gallery, Prague; Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich “Araki Nobuyoshi” Il Tempo, Tokyo “Winter Love” Toru Maeshima Gallery, Wakayama

1998

“Tokyo Shijyo” Diechtorhallen, Hamburg “The Past= Photographs 1972-1973” Stadtisches Museum Leverkusen, Germany “Nobuyoshi Araki= Tokyo” Stadtisches Klinikum Fulda, Germany “Portraits and Flowers” Photographers Gallery, London “Tokyo Nostalsia” GaIleria Photology, Milan “A’s Life” traveling to Toyama, Yokohama, Sapporo and Fukuoka



“Arakinema: Tokyo Comedy in Vienna, SpiraI Hall, Tokyo “Arakinema: Taipei” Yomiuri Culture Salon Aoyama; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan “Arakinema: Erotic Woman in Color” Taipei, Taiwan; Bangkok, Thailand “Cosmosco” Taka ishii Gallery “Story portraits” Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand “A’s Paradise” Shinjuku Takashimaya Concourse (outdoor instaIIation) ,

1997

“A’s Life” Kachimai HaIl, Obihiro; Laforet Museum Harajuku Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki” Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich “Shikijyo” Scalo Book Store, Zurich “Flower Rondo” J. M. Gallery, Tokyo “Araki Retrographs” Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo “Arakinema: Retro-Ero” Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo “A World of GirIs” II Tempo, Tokyo “Tokyo Comedy” Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria “Arakinema: Love Secession” Wiener secession, Vienna, Austria “Arakinema: Tokyo Paradise” Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria “Arakinema: Vienna and Tokyo Paradise” Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo “Nobuyoshi Araki” Gallery Starmach, Krakow, Poland “Nobuyoshi Araki” Studio Guenzani, Milan

1996

“Faces vs Bodies” SpiraI Garden, Tokyo “Arakinema: Faces vs Bodies/ Spiral Hall, Tokyo “Death Reality” Taka lshii Gallery Tokyo “The Past 1972-1973” Stadtsparkasse. Muenster, Germany “FIowers: Life and Death” Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo “Tokyo Novel” Egg Gallery, Tokyo “Shadows of Flowers/ Gallery Eve Tokyo “Bokuju-kitan” Jablonka Galerie, Köln “Arakinema: Novel Photography” Studio Mouris Roppongi, Tokyo “Arakinema: Flower Rondo ll” Areana Hall, Tamagawa Takashimaya SC, Tokyo

Tokyo

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“Fake Love” Ginza Komatsu, Tokyo “The Face, The Dead” Pace Wildenstein and MacGill, Los Angeles “A moment in Time” espace TAG Heuer, Tokyo “From Close-range” BIum & Poe, Los Angeles

1995

“Erotos” Gallery lndex, Stockholm, Sweden; GalIery Bang, Oslo, Norway; Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria “Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991” traveling to Zone Gallery, New Castle, England; Galerie Bob van Orsouw, Zurich “Araki Nobuyoshi” Torch, Amsterdam “Journal intime” Fondation Cartier pour I’art contemporain, Paris “The First Year of Heisei” Le Garage, Reims, France “Nobuyoshi Araki: A-Diary/Sachin and His Brother Mabo”, Galerie Chantal CrouseI, Paris “Naked Novel” Egg Gallery, Tokyo “Arakinema: Sentimental Journey/Winter Journey” Sogetsu Hall, Tokyo “Satchin in Summer” Laforet Museum Harajuku Tokyo “Arakinema: Passion in Okinawa” Ryubo Hall, Naha “Pictures by A Virgin Boy, Daccho-kun” Space Link, Tokyo (drawings) “Tokyo Novelle” Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany “Bokuju-kitan” Jablonka Galerie, Köln “Nobuyoshi Araki: Diario lntimo” Encontros de Fotografia, Coimbra, Portugal

1994

“Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991” traveling to Museet for Fotokunst,Odense, Denmark; Nordliga Fotocentret, Oulu Finland “Private Photography” Yurakucho Asahi Gallery, Tokyo “Sky” Gallery Eve, Tokyo “Tokyo Nude/Private Diary” Luhring Augustine, New York “Unconscious Tokyo : Tokyo Cube” White Cube, London “Obscene Photographs” Taka Ishii Gallery Tokyo

1993

“Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991” traveling to Galerie Museum, Bozen, Italy; Kunsthal



Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Fotomuseum im Munchener Standmuseum, Munich, Germany; Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz, Austria “Fine Tokyo Days” Gallery Verita, Tokyo New World of Love” La Camera, Tokyo “Erotos”Parco Gallery, Tokyo

1992

“Love interrogations: Tokyo Fax./Facks” Apt Gallery, Tokyo “State of Things: A Thousand Photographs Exhibited Day by Day” P3 Art and Environment, Tokyo “Angel’s Festival” Parco Gallery, Tokyo “Car Photographs” Egg Gallery, Tokyo “Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991” Forum Stadtpark, Graz, Austria;traveling to Galerie Fotohof, Mirabellpark, Salzburg, Austria “Photo-maniac Diary” Egg Gallery, Tokyo

1991

“Winter Journey” Egg Gallery Tokyo “A’s Nude Exhibition: Lovers” Apt Gallery, Tokyo “In the Move: The sky where Butterflies Flitter Around” Egg Gallery Tokyo “Arakinema: Springscapes” Cinema Rise Shibuya, Tokyo “From Close-range” Hosomi Gallery, Tokyo “Jeanne” Shinchosha Art Space; Heartland, Hamamatsu “From Close-range: Yamorinskies like Flower and Nude”, Athens Gallery, Osaka “Colorscapes” Seed Hall, Tokyo

1990

“Chiro, My Love” Ikebukuro Book Center Libro, Tokyo “Skyscapes” Gallery Verita, Tokyo “Foto Tanz” Shinjuku Konica Plaza, Tokyo “Tokyo Lucky Hole” apt Gallery, Tokyo “Towards Winter : Tokyo, A City Heading for Death” Egg Gallery Tokyo

1989

“Nobuyoshi Araki ‘89: Selected Photographs” Gallery Kosai, Machida, Kanagawa 3 7

1987

“A Part of Love” Art Space Mirage, Tokyo “Araki-s-m 1967-1987” Zeit-Foto Salon, Tokyo “Puppet Prince” Spiral Hall, Tokyo



“Private Tokyo ‘76” Kinokuniya Gallery, Tokyo

1975

“Actress: Kisaki Sekimura” Minolta Photo Space, Tokyo

1986

“Shibuya Street” Doi Photo Plaza Shibuya, Tokyo Slide show “Arakinema : Tokyo-Story” Cinema Rise, Tokyo “A’s Erotomania Diary” Zito-Foto Salon

1974

“Actresses: with Photos, videos, and Films”, Gallery Matto Grosso, Tokyo

1984

“A Balthus Summer” Picture Photo Space, Osaka “A World of Girls” Zeit-Foto Salon

1973

“Pseudo-documentary: Photographs of Polluted by Silver-Halogen Compound : Chirring Cicadas in Chorus”, Kinokuniya Gallery Tokyo “Flowers in Ruins” Shimizu Gallery, Tokyo

1982

“I am Photography”,”Araki’s Storm of Love” Doi Photo PlazaShibuya, Tokyo “The 3rd Arakism Maanifesto” Asahi Seimei Hall, Tokyo

1981

“The 2nd Arakism Manifesto” Yamaha Hall, Tokyo

1980

“The Arakism Manifesto” New York Theatre, Tokyo “Wet dreams on midsummer Night and the Anniversary of the End of the War”, Kinokuniya Gallery, Tokyo “Zigeunerweisen : Fictitious Truth” Kinokuniya Gallery, Tokyo

1979

“First Visit to New York” MINOLTA Photo Space, Tokyo

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

1978

“Actress: A Sentimental Ero-Roman” Horindo Art Space Tokyo “Eizo: portraits of descendants” Camp, Tokyo “My Scene : 1940-1977” Ginza Cannon Salon, Tokyo

1977

“Tokyo Blues” Ginza Nikon Salon, Tokyo “This years Photos” Shirakaba Gallery, Tokyo “Last years Photos” Shirakaba Gallery, Tokyo

1976

“Yoko, My Love” Ginza Nikon Salon Tokyo

ARKEN Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark Art Collection Neue Borse Centre Pompidou, Paris Deutsche Bank Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Centre National des Arts Plastiques Fotomuseum Wintherthur Sammlung Goetz, Munich Hara Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo IZU PHOTO MUSEUM Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg

1970-76 “Kitchen-Ramen : Erotic-Realism” Kitchen-Ramen, Tokyo

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1970 Tokyo

“Sur-sentimentalist Manifest No.2 : The Truth About Carmen Marie” Kunugi Gallery,

1967

“Ginza”,”Zoo” Mitsubishi Denki Gallery, Tokyo

1966

“Subway”,”Middle-aged Women” Mitsubishi Denki Gallery, Tokyo

1965

“Satchin and Mabo” Shinjuku Station Gallery, Tokyo

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Maison de la photographie, Paris Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Montréal Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna Telenor Foundation, Norway Peter Norton Collection (Tate UK) Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Sammlung Hoffman The Israel Museum, Jerusalem The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The UBS Art Collection Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography Yokohama Museum of Art Kunsthalle Winterthur

There is nothing more interesting than women, and nothing more exciting.

As for ‘Beauty’ spoken, this is like a fixed illusion that someone has developed. After all, I want to take photographs of ‘real women’, lives full of faults and with a dirty side. That’s why I have been taking such women for a long time.

PRIZES 2008 1994 1991 1990 1964

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Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Arts Japan Inter-Design Forum Grand Prix 7th Higashikawa Prize Shashin-no-kai Prize from the Photographic Society of Japan First Taiyo Prize for “Satchin”

- Nobuyoshi Araki

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Copyright © 2011 Galerie Steph, Singapore and Ooi Botos Gallery, Hong Kong. All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this catalogue or portions thereof in any form. Edition of 500 published by Galerie Steph and Ooi Botos Gallery. Edited by Lisa Botos and Stephanie Tham. Catalogue Design by Paulina León. “Nobuyoshi Araki: All Women are Beautiful” exhibition presented by Galerie Steph and Ooi Botos Gallery in Singapore from September 7, 2011 to October 23, 2011 at Galerie Steph, Artspace@Helutrans, 39 Keppel Road, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 01-05, Singapore 089065. This catalogue may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system and/or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic mediaor mechanical, including illustrations, photocopy, film or video recording, internet posting, or any other information storage system without the permission of Nobuyoshi Araki and the publisher.

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Galerie Steph [email protected] www.galeriesteph.com

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