Nobuyoshi Araki (Araki, Nobuyoshi) has to be one of the most productive and important post-war Japanese artists and certainly one of the most famous photographers in the world. I have to say that for all the people who face frontal nudity as smutty pornography. The real news is that this is photography of love, sex, death, and you, my friend, are a voyeur.


I think I like Araki because I tend to be drawn to people who have a rebellious nature. All our heroes are rebellious, controversial, brave enough to buck the norm, which we admire. For an alleged pornographer, his book Winter Journey, (which is one of hundreds of his published books, Taschen's Araki sold at $4000.00 each) which details photographs of his dying long time wife, is incredibly honest and a devoted work. Check out his photographs of Minori Miyata, to understand his connection to the subject. Even with his erotic, often sexually bound (and traditionally bound) Japanese housewives, the viewer is confronted with an intimacy. And Araki isn't apologetic about it. It is a strange difference between North American view of "bondage " and the Japanese view of "Kinbaku." Each photo represents Araki's viewpoint of only being able to tie up physical parts, and not hearts. Araki sees this more as an "embrace." Even Bjork loves him (look at the album Telegram) and that's after he described her as "half virgin, half old bag." If you wish to see Araki is his full blown craziness, rent the documentary "Arakimentari."


It's an achievement to get Araki's polaroids outside of Japan and now (2008) that Polaroid has officially stopped all manufacture of it's instant film, and depleting all stock by early 2009, I'm pretty happy about having these in my collection and to be able to offer them. They can be seen here.

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