NOBUYOSHI ARAKI

b. 1940, Tokyo, Japan

Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan

 

Nobuyoshi Araki is a celebrated and controversial Japanese photographer whose work revolves around female eroticism, women’s bodies in Japanese bondage, and his fascination with his birthplace of Tokyo, Japan. With his notoriously provocative images, Araki has been involved in both scandals of attempted censorship and the subject of much controversial attention from critics and the press. Other important themes that motivate Araki’s work include flowers, kinbaku (the Japanese art of rope-tying), the endless cycle of life and death, and the exploration of this precarious relationship. Since the inception of his practice in the 1960s, Araki has continued to astound viewers with a plethora of beautiful and provocative images and become one of his country’s most eminent and prolific photographers, having published over 450 photobooks of his works.

 

His solo exhibitions include “Hana-Jinsei, Kahitsukan,” Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, Kyoto, Japan (2023); “Sentimental Journey 1971-2017-,” the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo (2017); “Araki,” the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet, Paris (2016); “Ōjō Shashū: Photography for the Afterlife – Faces, Skyscapes, Roads,” the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2014); “Nobuyoshi Araki Photobook Exhibition: Arākī,” the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM, Shizuoka (2012); “NOBUYOSHI ARAKI: Self, Life, Death,” Barbican Art Gallery, London (2005); “Hana- Jinsei,” the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2003); “Tokyo Still Life,” Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2001); “Nobuyoshi Araki,” the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent (2000); “ARAKI Nobuyoshi Sentimental Photography, Sentimental Life,” the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1999); “Tokyo Comedy,” the Wiener Secession, Vienna (1997); “Journal intime,” the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (1995); “Akt-Tokyo: Nobuyoshi Araki 1971-1991,″ the Forum Stadtpark, Graz (1992). Araki is a recipient of The photographic Society of Japan Annual Award (1990), the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Arts (2008) and the 54th Mainichi Art Award (2012).

 

His work is included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Museo Civico d’Arte di Modena, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Peter Norton Collection (Tate UK), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Gallery of Modern Art San Francisco, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Tate Modern, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others.