#85 CAMERA Book Review: Nobuyoshi Araki - Tokyo Still Life

Nobuyoshi Araki, Tokyo Still Life. I have to be really careful with this book because it's full of explicit images. Nothing really bad, but a lot of body parts, a lot of body parts deemed as art, a lot of body parts deemed as a sort of reality check on life. I like his work and it really sort of holds no bars on what he's trying to illustrate. He covers death, he covers life, he covers sex a lot. i think he covers his thoughts it's it's there's no with Nobuyoshi's work there's no excuse he doesn't apologize for anything he does like the style is very similar like a lot of japanese photography which i've seen over the years that sort of black and white abstract pure whites and blacks and deep blacks i love it i'm going to turn these pages it might get a bit stop start this because i don't mind you might miss a lot but because there is a lot of stuff in here i don't want to show um on the internet you can buy this book it is absolutely really good to be honest it's on the internet it's easily available it's not that expensive let's have a look at it and i'll try my best published in 99 1999 um it was it is a it's a retrospective i think and it goes from his sort of early exhibitions which was let me find it which was this Satchin and his brother I think this was somewhere early on in the 70s late 60s that this was one of his first exhibitions and it's gorgeous some lovely colour it's got that sort of early 70s colour to it hasn't it anyway so going back to this it starts with that and then it ends to this exhibition called the End of the century so this was I think it was on at the Icon Gallery anyway so I'm going to go through it take on board some of the imagery take on board some of the beauty and the shots take on board just the unapologetic way of taking pictures really there's all concepts themes metaphors within everything he's shown this is a slight snippet i guess of his bigger picture of work he's got search his name on the internet he's got absolutely tons of stuff and then you'll see a more in-depth version of what i'm going to show i just want to show some of these i don't show this book because i i love it and i love that cover and um right so i think there's a forward by Adrian Searle Adrian Searle actually this is the forward by Jonathan Watkins and there's an essay called um suspended feeling uh Nobuyoshi Araki feeling feeling feeling pressing the shutter is like stopping the breath for a second but no killing please it's just a state of suspended feeling and that's what he's doing he's just whatever he's thinking whatever he's looking at it's life it's that it's it whether he's looking at a tied up woman or um or or a budgie or a cat or a dog that's it and he's incorporates that within the concept of what he's shooting Adrian um Adrian Searle is this was in 2001 Adrian as i remember is the senior art critic at the Guardian so he knows his stuff and yeah so a great essay i've read some of it actually i remember reading this when i first had it and it's like there's some really nice um discussion in it like talking about um his metaphors and the way he shoots and i think you know it's there's certain things which he says and which make relevance and i think you need to look into that i think you should buy it anyway so this is satchin and his brother mabel and that's there and then that's on that page there that's really nice i don't know what that's about i have to say like i read went through some of adrian's stuff i might be able to get it so then you can guess why i'm covering my hand here this one's called tokyo nude it's going to be quite interesting i have a thing about tokyo because i've worked in tokyo and i absolutely adored the place i thought it was amazing it was a bit expensive when i was there but it was just um i just loved it i loved the feeling of the place and that um innocent quality of the place where you just can be yourself and very much everybody else was being themselves i think that's about as risky as i can get really with with this this is the tokyo nude and again a crossover and we've got that and this is sentimental journey like i said i'm not really sure about some of the stories i need to refresh myself but like i said i just want to open up the world to um you know his work and and and some of the concepts he's following it and doing and some of the concepts he's working on or worked on so let's let's have a look at this um yeah that's pretty safe apart from that picture there that looks like a gravestone so he does play with death a lot in his shots he plays with um life and in many forms so i can turn the page and that's a very safe shot and you can see look there's a time shot in 89 and they're not shot on very expensive cameras but you know you don't need to there's no real rules you know they just if you're fitting a imagery into a structure narrative structure or a concept then it doesn't really matter you know you're just visualizing your thoughts your dream and that's very much what uh nobody actually does you know and again cat in the hedge shadow in the bush and again a guy's playing with that life and mortality thing as well the hospital and this is a journey on a route of memories maybe that could be with a sentimental journey and the death of somebody so maybe it was you know maybe oh look at the pictures of the cats and stuff it is beautiful you know it's such brave stuff to do and it's where we'll all be one day and I think there's nothing wrong with playing on that you know and there's a picture of the cat and there's the cat there playing in different variations and alone as well showing it sort of on its own and maybe this is a sort of homage to that lady for whatever reason she sadly passed away i think it's it's it's wonderful i like it i do Eros now i'm a bit nervous on this one because even just looking at her eye i can see that there's something even more hidden in the shape of it and i think it's very sort of sexual um it's very very cleverly shot he's very good okay these are not that bad play it there it's pretty good there's nothing too dodgy in all of this i wonder if these are symbols and signs of um that is amazing oh look at that that is that is amazing it's only a tongue so youtube if you're watching it's only a tongue that's amazing you've got the ring flash lines there so you can see how it's shot you've got ring flash halos there as well they're all over sort of answer the concept it's interesting would you have taken that off maybe i don't think he cares flowers again sort of sexual almost you know metaphor for like phallic symbols you know and that one there definitely wow look at that looks more like a part of the body doesn't it tokyo uh nostalgia, I'll just bring this down a little bit more so I'm gonna cover that and then run on to that, there's nothing dodgy about that, it's a lot of um almost like dreamy sort of snippets of a journey and a woman that was, that the woman in the last thing who lost her life um obviously snaps that she took up some relevance to um to the photographer and so this is where it's going to get a bit jumpy, moved over here to this page, almost like there's almost like a quite sinister some of these and I'm sure they're not meant to be and there's definitely a sort of separation and a sort of really strong um signal within the shots that that the landscape is supposed to be intimidating and the person is intimidated, maybe it's quite sort of you can feel as a sort of intimidation and separation um from people from this backdrop here and then they're almost almost they're obviously in there and there's a sense of alienation as well, it's really interesting I guess with the pictures I'm missing out, it would make sense, feels like they're almost crime scenes because there's women tied up on my right page, it's intriguing and again yeah it's definitely something really sinister, it's like it's like a unfolding of a detective or a thriller series you know where they find the crime scenes, they find the women bound up and it's really sinister and all the evidence of the area is all like CCTV almost, it's really really interesting and there's the cut you know a lot of people who put that sort of shot in wouldn't get away with it but there's definitely a strong narrative link between the cat and the other shots and it's quite interesting how somebody can justify that cut in relationship to everything else and it's just fascinating how we accept it whereas if somebody like myself would put a picture of a cut like that nobody would take it seriously because I haven't got a strong there's not this stuff is not part of a sort of very abstract message in a way maybe that's it and I'm not as well known as nobody else so here we go back to that, it's pretty some sick stuff this almost is sort of coming to the end of that series and almost like he could be the kidnapper you know I may be reading this totally wrong but it's really so what my interpretation, that's what it's all about and then almost like the normality of things going around the place it's fascinating and then And then we've got a girl who's very passive now, not tied up. And then we've got this lovely face of an elderly man. And it's gone from this sort of abruptly horrible type of photography, which is looking at women in a very compromising way, to stuff like two shots like that. There's another picture on the other side I don't want to show. This is going to take some editing. So, yeah. And then I've jumped a few pictures, because again there were just some sort of very naked women and we've got quite a few here and then we go to that I mean come on that's a good photography, that's a gorgeous shot I love that shot, it's really good great photography and then we end, I've missed quite a few at the end of the century, this is the final shot exhibition and then we get to the end of the century, this is the final one and then, right so maybe this is more I'm sort of getting a feeling on this one so let me just try to explain the feelings I'm getting so there's naked pictures of women on this side, there's these guys it sort of ends with it's ending with these guys obviously like almost a stag party but I know with Japanese culture this is very part of the culture drinking and guys together and stuff like that and the shots of girls who are sexually explicit shots and I think it's using women as a sort of sex subjects that's what I'm getting and understanding and really sort of lowering the woman as a sort of thing of object of desire going by some of the pictures what I'm seeing and the way the men the way the men are behaving there's nothing judgy on that but I'll give you this sort of last shot there's the cat I wonder if that was his sister or his wife who owned the cat and this is his way of coming to terms with stuff i have no idea i think i think there's some lovely stuff and in um nobody else's work and i think you should go out and discover it a little bit and i'm pleased that i've offered you a little insight i have waffled a little but um that's the beauty of photography you can read into it what you really want to get out of it thank you Nobuyoshi and if i come across any more of your work i'll put it on thank you