Major retrospective in Siena for master of eroticism Nobuyoshi Araki with 2,200 photos of his entire output, including unpublished

From June 21 to September 30, 2019, the Santa Maria della Scala complex in Siena will host the Effetto Araki exhibition, entirely dedicated to the great Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki (Tokyo, 1940): there are 2,200 photographs on display in the Tuscan city, tracing 50 years of the artist’s career, from the early 1960s to the present. The works were selected by curator Filippo Maggia from among photographs belonging to more than 20 series produced by the Japanese photographer, who wanted to celebrate his more than 50 years of activity (his first exhibition was in 1965) with an almost complete panorama of his very complex and articulated production. Araki has become world famous for his erotic works, particularly those in the bondage genre, but his production ranges beyond that, and some series are being exhibited in Siena for the first time in Europe.

These include Anniversary of Hokusai’s Death and Gloves, as well as the collection Araki’s Paradise, photographs Araki takes using his home as a stage. The latter series was specially made for Siena: a thus original, reflective and emotional Araki who seems to want to summarize in this exhibition his entire artistic and human story. Along the exhibition route there is then a narrative dedicated to Satchin and his brother Mabo, two of Araki’s neighbor boys, images from the 1960s; Subway of Love, photographs taken in the Tokyo subway at the turn of the 1970s; classic portraits of elegant Japanese women and men; and the compositions entitled Araki’ s Lovers from the 1980s and 1990s; a fine selection of bondage; images belonging to Tokyo Diary from the decade 2000-2010, a photographic diary Araki has been updating daily since 1980; and the 2017 chronicle entitled Anniversary of Hokusai’s Death, in honor of the great Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai.

Alongside the touching Sentimental Journey in its complete version (the account of his honeymoon with his wife Yoko in 108 black-and-white photographs), the equally moving work titled Sentimental night in Kyoto is offered for the first time in Italy; and then again theAmant d’Août, dedicated to the model Komari; the photographs made on the occasion of the 60th year after the End of the War, The 60th year after the End of the War; and some 20 diptychs from the Tokyo Nude series, symbolic architectures of the Japanese capital juxtaposed with female nudes.

In addition to the Polaroids arranged in tables, shots that tell of the artist’s daily life in Tokyo, two other recent series dedicated to his hometown appear: Tokyo Summer Story and Tokyo Autumn, bright and luminous the former (as is the Japanese capital’s hot summer), melancholic and intimate the latter, veiled in twilight. With the floral compositions, celebrating the beauty and transience of life, the Balcony of Love series is also presented, photographs arranged on the terrace of the house enlivened by the presence of the cat Ciro, irreplaceable life companion of the Japanese photographer. Completing the exhibition is a video that presents Araki as he selects the works in the show together with curator Filippo Maggia and a catalog book, published by Skira, with a selection of three hundred works from those on display.

Image: Sentimental night in Tokyo, 1972 ©Nobuyoshi Araki

Major retrospective in Siena for master of eroticism Nobuyoshi Araki with 2,200 photos of his entire output, including unpublished

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