The Araki Effect

Araki's career in full, from the portraits of the early 1960s to city scenes and tender tributes to his wife

Araki is known the world over for his controversial erotic portraits of Japanese women, often bound using the kinbaku (Japanese bondage) technique. A unique figure in contemporary photography, he has always found creative inspiration in his daily existence, without making any distinction between his personal life and public and professional practice.

The Araki Effect offers a broad overview of his career: from the first series from 1963–65, Satchin and His Brother Mabo, to Subway of Love, a large collection of images taken in the Tokyo subway between 1963 and 1972, the year he also made Autumn in Tokyo, which recounts the autumn he spent wandering through the city in the twilight hours. These are followed by Sentimental Night in Kyoto, less known than the famous Sentimental Journey, both tributes to his wife, Yoko; Balcony of Love, Death Reality, Tokyo Diary from 2017, and one of his latest collections, Araki's Paradise from 2019.

Born in Tokyo in 1940, Nobuyoshi Araki worked at an advertising agency in the 1960s, where he met his future wife, Yoko Araki, the subject of his now classic volume Sentimental Journey. Araki's oeuvre spans erotic portraits of women, still lifes, images of plants, scenes of everyday life and architectural photography. He has published around 400 books, shown in many international exhibitions and his work is part of important collections worldwide. Araki lives and works in Tokyo.