With a career spanning six decades, Nobuyoshi Araki (1940- ) is one of the most prolific photographers of all time, having published over 450 books and exhibited in over 280 solo exhibitions worldwide. He first became known for his photographs of women bound according to the ancestral rules of Japanese bondage (Kinbaku), and has continued to develop imagery around a central theme in his work – Eros and thanatos (sex and death). His most visited motifs include naked women, female genitalia, flowers, food, his cat, faces and Tokyo street scenes.

Araki studied photography at Chiba University’s Department of Photography, Painting and Engineering (1959-63) with a focus on film and photography. His project 

 earned him the prestigious Taiyo Award in 1964, shortly after he had joined the advertising agency Dentsu, where he worked until 1972. At Dentsu, he met his future wife Yōko Araki, whom he photographed abundantly before her death in 1990. The publication 

 (1971), consists of photographs taken while on their honeymoon, and 

 (1991), features images taken during Yōko’s final days. These publications made him internationally renowned as a diarist and documentarist of everyday life.

Araki has been active in publishing, photography and filmmaking since his first solo exhibition at Shinjuku Station Gallery in Tokyo in 1965. More recent solo exhibitions include Araki, Musée Guimet, Paris (2016); 

Ojo Shashu – Photography for the After Life: Eastern Sky, qARADISE

, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2015, travelled to Niigata City Art Museum; Toyota Municipal Museum of Art); 

Ojo Shashu – Photography for the After Life: Alluring Hell

The Faces of Japan, Project HIROSHIMA by Nobuyoshi Araki

, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (2009); and 

, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2006). His work is represented in many of the most significant public and private collections worldwide, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was a recipient of the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Arts (Austrian Embassy, 2008) and the 54th Mainichi Art Award (2012). Araki lives and works in Tokyo.

Trained in photography and film, Nobuyoshi Araki (1940- ) is one of his generation’s most productive and influential artists, with a large production of books, exhibitions and films. Araki lives and works in Tokyo.

The exhibition title “Kinbaku” refers to a Japanese style of erotic bondage where ropes, bound by assymetrical knots, are used to create patterns on women’s bodies. The method is a traditional Japanese art form, combining elements from the arts of packag- ing and flower decoration. The techniques used to tie the women depicted in Araki’s photographs, and the bodily positions the bondage at times enables the women to prolong, demonstrate techniques and positions derived from the Kinbaku tradition. The series is one of many attempts by the artist to approach women; the rope may be seen as a metaphor of arms in an embrace. In contrast to the western concept of bondage, Araki represents a different approach stating that: “I only tie up a woman’s body because I know I cannot tie up her heart. Only her physical parts can be tied up. Tying up a woman becomes an embrace.”

The exhibition is comprised of approximately twenty-eight black and white photo- graphs in large format, and is organized in collaboration with Galleri Riis.

Peder Lund

Nobuyoshi Araki

Exhibitions

Kinbaku

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Composition for the Left Hand

Love Songs