Araki. 40th Ed.

Decades of images have been distilled into 512 pages of photographs in this definitive retrospective collection of Nobuyoshi Araki's work, selected by the artist himself.

First published in limited edition and now in a new format to celebrate TASCHEN's 40th anniversary, the selection delves into Araki's best-known images: Tokyo street scenes; faces and food; colourful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As the girls lie bound but defiant and the shimmering petals take on suggestive shapes, Araki constantly plays with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire, and the slippage between serene image and shock.

Describing his bondage photographs as "a collaboration between subject and photographer", Araki seeks to approach his female subjects through photography, emphasising the role of the spoken conversation between himself and the model. In his native Japan, he has achieved cult status for many women who feel liberated by his willingness to photograph the expression of their desire.

The artist

Nobuyoshi Araki was born in Tokyo in 1940. His father gave him a camera at the age of twelve, and he has been taking pictures ever since. He studied photography and film at Chiba University and turned to commercial photography shortly after graduating. In 1970 he created his famous photocopied photo albums, which he produced in limited editions and sent to friends, art critics and people selected at random from the phone book. Over the years, his bold and brazen photographs of his private life have been the subject of much controversy and censorship (especially in his native Japan), a fact that has neither disturbed the artist nor diminished his influence. To date, Araki has published more than 400 books of his work.

Araki. 40th ed.

-Hardcover, 15.6 x 21.7 cm, 1.24 kg, 512 pages.

-ISBN 978-3-8365-8252-0.

-Editions: English.