PHOTO:Nobuyoshi Araki-A Desktop Paradise

Paradise is one of Nobuyoshi Araki’s most important themes. After his wife death, he produced “A’s Paradise” (1998), in which he photographed various objects arranged on his balcony, “qARADISE” (2011), in which he captured colored flowers and monster figurines, “It was Once a Paradise” (2011) comprised female nudes and sculptural objects and “Monochrome Paradise” (2015) featured images of dolls and dying flowers.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Taka Ishii Gallery Archive

Nobuyoshi Araki’s solo exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery Photography Paris features Araki’s newest series “A Desktop Paradise”, which comprises 23 color photos shot on 6 x 7 color positive film. Regarding the series, Araki has said that he now prefers to simply position objects he’s fond of and shoot them instead of trying to create a specific narrative. He has photographed personal objects that he is familiar with in a diaristic manner as if he was shooting the ever changing sky. Since the 1960s, Nobuyoshi Araki has pioneered a new photographic genre of “private photography” by making his private relations with various people and things the subject of his work. With boundless creative energy, he has photographed humans dying, objects deteriorating, and flowers withering on the one hand, and portraits, cityscapes, bound women and voluptuous flowers, all full of life, on the other. The extremes of reality and fiction and Eros and Thanatos exist in equivalence and parallel in Araki’s photographs. His work suggests that capturing these opposing elements in harmony is the essence of photography. While he treats everything he sees as his subjects, his subjects also function as a screen for his imagined landscapes. He called the resulting images “Sentimental”. The theme of “sentimentality” has remained consistent throughout his oeuvre.

Info: Taka Ishii Gallery Photography Paris, 119 rue Vieille du Temple, Paris, Duration: 15/9-29/10/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-19:00, www.takaishiigallery.com