Nobuyoshi Araki - Photo Theater Tokyo Elegy - 1981

Photo Theater Tokyo Elegy

Nobuyoshi Araki
Fuyukisha/1981/Japanese/235*190*20

Nobuyoshi Araki, a Japanese photographer, has published more than 400 photo books since the 1960s. Araki is a “photographic artist” who has continued to break new ground in the art of photography, not through formal “art” but through “freedom,” “unconventionality,” and sometimes “good sense. His works, such as nudes using various techniques and humanistic snaps, were radical and sometimes caused various controversies, but only because he continued to fight against art. This book, published in 1981, is one of the most important books of his early and mid-term works. The illustrations in the book were taken between 1967 and 1972, and are fictional (documentary) images of various events that occurred around the awareness of “death” after the death of his father Chotaro. This is a collection that became the true starting point of Nobuyoshi Araki's photography and his theory of photography (realism). The unique arrangement and flow of the photographs transforms them into a theater of images. This is a wonderful book that finally saw the light of day 10 years later, when it was scheduled to be published by Shashin Hyoronsha in a pair with Daido Moriyama's masterpiece “Shashin yo sayonara” (Sayonara to Photography), published in 1972.