Nobuyoshi Araki - Higan/The Scenic Jeju Island: 'Drifting - 2004-2011

Higan

Nobuyoshi Araki
Rat Hole Gallery/2011/Japanese/155*215*18

"Higan" is a photo book by Nobuyoshi Araki, created while he was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Through the window of a taxi, Araki captured images of Tokyo, continuing his long-standing "Kurumato" series. However, this time, he used a 200mm telephoto lens, allowing him to layer a sense of "loss" over everyday scenes of the city. The title "Higan" suggests a view from or towards the other side, with Araki's lens focusing on the various shapes and forms of people as if contemplating or being contemplated by the beyond. Like his simultaneously published work "Rakuen" (Paradise), the photographs in this collection were taken after the death of his beloved cat Chiro last spring, permeated with Araki's deep reflections on lost time. Both "Higan" and "Rakuen" illustrate the evolving nature of Araki's photography in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.


The Scenic Jeju Island: 'Drifting

Nobuyoshi Araki
Artone/2004/Japanese/175*265*10

This is a collection of works by Nobuyoshi Araki, one of Japan's leading photographers, titled “Drifting” on Jeju Island in the Wind and Light. As the title suggests, the book includes portraits and landscapes taken on the Korean island of Jeju, but Araki's relationship with Korea began in the early 1980s, when he visited the country in 1982 and co-published “Story Seoul” in 1984, incorporating snapshots taken by Araki into Kenji Nakagami's novel. Since then, they have visited Korea about seven times, and in 2001, published “Novel Seoul,” a large book of over 500 pages edited with illustrations selected from the thousands of shots they had taken up to that point. In 2004, he visited Seoul with Nakagami's daughter, writer Nori Nakagami, and published “Seoul ‘Memory’ Again,” a book of photographs that was published in the same year as a companion volume. The photographs in this book are generally more mature than those of Seoul, with rural landscapes standing out. Incidentally, the book is a collaboration with nonfiction writer Seiji Fujii, and includes his text at the end of the book.