Photographing subjects as diverse as flowers, kinbaku (the Japanese art of rope-tying), and Tokyo street scenes, Nobuyoshi Araki continues to astound viewers with a plethora of beautiful and provocative images. Themes of love, sex, death, consumption, natural beauty, and femininity have inspired Araki since his days as a student of film and photography in the early 1960’s. Never willing to compromise his vision, Araki uses photography to enhance and record the strong emotional reactions he has to the subject of life and death.Born in Tokyo in 1940, Nobuyoshi Araki has been active in publishing, photography and filmmaking since his first solo exhibition in 1965 in Japan. Recent exhibitions include The Cartier Foundation, Paris (1995), Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1997), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1999), Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art, Hayward Gallery (2001) and most recently in London in "Self•Life•Death" (2006) at Barbican Art Gallery.
The exhibition Araki at Michael Hoppen Contemporary coincided with the limited edition publication Araki by Taschen.
Some 400 books about Araki and his work have been published to date, a testament to his prolific output and energy.
A new catalogue of the November Michael Hoppen Contemporary exhibition will be available to purchase soon from the gallery titled Hana Kinbaku.
The exhibition begins 20 November 2008 and continues until 10th January 2009