Eros and Ardor
Dancing a fine line between eroticism and pornography, Araki Nobuyoshi (1940-) established his name by shooting female naked portraits with sensual details. His works often involve performative sexual acts with models. One of the featured acs is “kinbaku”(tight binding 緊縛), which originates from the Edo period (1600-1868) and became widely popular in the 1950s through subculture magazines.
The explicit sexual expressions in Araki’s photographs confront the repressive regulations on obscenity and sex culture in a polite, civilized society like Japan. Contrary to the institutional tabooism, the fetishitic sex subculture flourishes outside the public vision.
In Sentimental Journey, Araki documents his honeymoon with wife Yoko, who has been the muse for most of his career. In the preface, he compares this photo book to a “shishōsetsu(私小説)”, or “I-novel/personal novel,” a genre in Japanese literature that centers around personal relationships of the protagonist. Similar to the first-person perspective in the i-novel, photos in Sentimental Journey feature Araki himself and foregrounds his relationship with Yoko in the form of a photo diary.
Originally studying applied sociology, Noritoshi Hirakawa (1960-) is a contemporary artist working with a variety of media, including photography, film, dance, performance and installation. Dissimilar to Araki’s unambiguous approach, his works challenge the social taboos in a more indirect and reflective way. Focusing on sexuality, death and heterosexual desire, he identifies the camera as “a very good excuse to connect men’s and women’s desires”.
“Hirakawa believes human activity forms the culture in which we live. His creation proposes to extend the capacity of human perception for furthering this culture. Within this framework, Hirakawa is pushing the boundaries of perception, altering aesthetic views for the future.”
Noritoshi Hirakawa's Portfolio
