Nobuyoshi araki

Self ¤ Life ¤ Death

Through his immense body of work Nobuyoshi Araki has created his own universe where the themes of his everyday life are closely intertwined - his hometown of Tokyo, his relationship with his wife, her untimely death, his many lovers and sex. His work, which often challenges social taboos surrounding sex and death, has drawn critical attention both at home and abroad.

This new abridged edition of Phaidon's major monograph provides a comprehensive overview of Araki's highly prolific career spanning forty-eight years. Araki's key bodies of work are included in large format, alongside an essay by Akiko Miki examining the photographer's significance and reputation today, and giving a cultural context to his work. Also included is a wide selection of Araki's writings, exclusively translated into English for Self Life Death.

In 1971 Araki privately published Sentimental Journey , an intimate account of his honeymoon with his wife Yoko. In the preface, Araki declared that his 'point of departure as a photographer was love' as well as the idea of an 'I-novel' [a form of Japanese fiction written auto-biographically and in the first person]. With this he established a new genre, 'I-photography', which was to have a great impact on a new generation of Japanese photographers, especially in the 1990s.

Through his innovative approach to photography, and rich visual vocabulary drawn from the erotic ukiyo-e prints of the Edo period (1600 - 1868) as well as the glossy imagery of our new commercial culture, Araki has become an important and influential figure in the contemporary art world. Reflecting Araki's photographic principle of 'I-photography', the book is divided into three sections that follow the main recurring themes in his work : Self, Life and Death and provides an insightful introduction to the major works of this influential photographer.

Front cover image from A Woman named Komari (2002). Back cover image from Banquet (1993).