Araki
I went to the Araki exhibition's final weekend at the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi. Even with 4000 images - many of them in grouped in wall-sized collages - and a great variety of themes and motives the show felt compact and coherent. Everywhere Araki's volcanic energy is in evidence. Like Winogrand his personal motto could be "I want to see how the world looks like photographed."
A couple of weeks ago Marko Hehl gave me a copy of a Japanese photo magazine dedicated to Araki. I featured a moving series of b&w photos recording his honeymoon with his wife Yoko ("Sentimental Journey") and her death many years after ("Winter Journey"). Again these pictures impressed me most of all at the Charleroi exhibition. Both journeys were shown on wall opposite each other and the result was a most subtle and poignant counterpoint between Eros and Thanatos. Some of the images in the earlier series (Yoko huddled in a boat, the lovemaking) look eerily prophetic, whilst the serene calm pervading the "Winter Journey" - with the cat slipping in and out of images as a messenger of another world - recaptures some of the contentment and passion of a long relationship.
Araki's other and better known work - the provocative nudes, the equally provocative food, the once more provocative flowers - claimed most of the wall space. I had a headache whilst visiting the exhibition so didn't any attention to the food pictures at all. The nudes raised a chuckle here and there. Actually they didn't strike me as provocative at all primarily because of the obvious pleasure with which Araki's models surrender themselves to his private phantasies. (Incidentally, the neighbourhood denizens thought otherwise as they attacked a large billboard outside the museum - featuring a naked woman with private parts barely hidden behind a feather - with paint buckets and a molotov cocktail). Anyway, whilst I was touring the exhibition, I did wonder a couple of times what some of these middle aged ladies where thinking when they were intently studying some of Araki's more daring phantasies ...
There was no catalogue. I'll have to buy his "Self, Life, Death", published by Phaidon.
A couple of weeks ago Marko Hehl gave me a copy of a Japanese photo magazine dedicated to Araki. I featured a moving series of b&w photos recording his honeymoon with his wife Yoko ("Sentimental Journey") and her death many years after ("Winter Journey"). Again these pictures impressed me most of all at the Charleroi exhibition. Both journeys were shown on wall opposite each other and the result was a most subtle and poignant counterpoint between Eros and Thanatos. Some of the images in the earlier series (Yoko huddled in a boat, the lovemaking) look eerily prophetic, whilst the serene calm pervading the "Winter Journey" - with the cat slipping in and out of images as a messenger of another world - recaptures some of the contentment and passion of a long relationship.
Araki's other and better known work - the provocative nudes, the equally provocative food, the once more provocative flowers - claimed most of the wall space. I had a headache whilst visiting the exhibition so didn't any attention to the food pictures at all. The nudes raised a chuckle here and there. Actually they didn't strike me as provocative at all primarily because of the obvious pleasure with which Araki's models surrender themselves to his private phantasies. (Incidentally, the neighbourhood denizens thought otherwise as they attacked a large billboard outside the museum - featuring a naked woman with private parts barely hidden behind a feather - with paint buckets and a molotov cocktail). Anyway, whilst I was touring the exhibition, I did wonder a couple of times what some of these middle aged ladies where thinking when they were intently studying some of Araki's more daring phantasies ...
There was no catalogue. I'll have to buy his "Self, Life, Death", published by Phaidon.
posted by Philippe at
2:44 PM
1 Comments:
Great! You have see Araki. Over 4000 pictures? Wow. Damn headache! Since January i have more often headache as the last three month! The Araki book self-life-death from phaidon are a very, very nice book. It shows a complete overwiew. It also stand in my bookcase ;o)
Also new to my bookcase are Coal Hollow, Josef Sudek and Josef Kolar.
By
Marko, at 6:37 PM
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