Comments on: Nobuyoshi Araki: Tokyo Aruki (Tokyo Walks)

By: Kurt

Kurt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:17:22 +0000

Thanks Brad, although I didn’t have much to do with it. Credit goes to John Sypal!

By: Brad. L.

Brad. L. — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:07:33 +0000

I enjoy your site Kurt! and thanks for the review… I’ll be in Tokyo again late September so will pick up a copy from you then.

By: James Miller

James Miller — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:04:45 +0000

It’s amazing that Araki has this incredible ability to polarise opinion, like William Eggleston and then some. He represents the place where modern or contemporary art and photography join up. Therefore his work does not easily fit into established photographic conventions and vernacular, which goes some way to explaining why so many “Photography” People misunderstand his work.

My interest in Araki began after seeing a Channel 4 TV Doc. back in the 90′s. This was when I decided buy a camera at the age of 19. He is along with Eggleston and HCB and others like them one of the biggest influences and inspirations. If there was no Araki we would have no Juergen Teller and no Terry Richardson. Araki continues to bring playfulness and freedom to the medium. Is he a “Street Photographer”? He would probably say no. He is just photographing the river that runs between Life and Death within the context of his home, Tokyo.

We can learn many lessons from him, photography is about taking pictures and editing, and photographing what you know and love. Anything else is folly.

By: Kurt

Kurt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:51:56 +0000

Azur,
Sorry, we don’t have a physical bookstore. Your best best is one of the major bookstores in Tokyo — Kinokuniya, Maruzen, or Junkudo (ask your hotel for the closest one of those). It’s a mass-market publication so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.

By: Azur

Azur — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:41:32 +0000

hey, i am in tokyo right now, do you know where i can buy the book? I asked for it in on sundays, the rat hole gallery and another one, but they did not know it.

Have Japan Exposures a physical bookstore?

Thank you!

By: John

John — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:48:29 +0000

However it seems that his presence in the general media has not been at the level it was in the late 90s. It will be interesting to see whom the next superstar photographer will be.

By: steven

steven — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:52:56 +0000

Within the ‘industry’ maybe Daido but among the general japanese public, I believe Araki is far more well known…

By: John

John — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:59:38 +0000

Steve, don’t you think that title is more apt for Moriyama Daido?

By: steven

steven — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:31:08 +0000

Whatever value his work may have, Araki and his fawning acolytes continue to ensure he remains the ‘name celebrity’ in photography in Japan.

By: Peter Evans

Peter Evans — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:45:41 +0000

Araki has a genius business model, that’s for sure. I know he takes his own photos (because I too have seen him at work), so he’s unlike, say, Kusama Yayoi with her team of blob-designers and blob-painters.

I’ll look for the book (so you’ve been a bit persuasive, John), but I’m not all that hopeful: the better books I’ve seen by Araki have a few arresting images but a lot of filler. Maybe if he edited as rigorously as, say, Nagano Shigeichi, he’d put out books I’d be tempted to buy.

Which reminds me: a few weeks ago I was in some bookstore (forget which) in which somebody was looking through Moriyama’s forest-slaughtering Hokkaido, turning page after page, from start to end, at a rock-steady one page per second, lingering over zero (0) photos. Pretty vacant.

My favorite street photographer this week: Roger Mayne: the book published by Jonathan Cape is fine.