Kabuki-cho’s Golden-Years and Doomsday, as Photographed by Nobuyoshi Araki

Golden-Years

The 1960s to mid-80s are often considered the golden-years of Japan’s sex industry. It was a time of post-war rebellion, things were shifting on their axis: the old-guards were slowly being replaced with a generation characterized by its liberal conduct — a lifestyle which, sex-wise, was in direct opposition to the old, conservative and far more prude status-quo. Nobuyoshi Araki’s photo collection, “Tokyo Lucky Hole”, is a candid, journalistic report of Shinjuku’s red-light district at this pro-sex zenith point, which by 1985 — with the implementation of the New Amusement Business Control and Improvement Act (more on this later) — came to a sudden and very bitter anti-climax.

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ARAKI

One cannot write about a subject in which Nobuyoshi Araki is a main player and not say at least a few words regarding his character and style. Often seen as a “sex maniac,” Araki’s work is in its majority erotic: women — most times dressed somewhere between the stages of semi-nude and fully-nude — are his primary subjects. Araki claims that the second ever photo he took was of a girl he was in love with, in primary school — here Araki’s future as a photographer of women was no doubt cemented. Araki: “For me, woman is photography.” While on occasion his photos may stray left or right of “obscenity,” into “tastefulness,” these artistic digressions seem to never be more than just that, digressions: Araki dipping his toes into the concept of non-sexual before drying off and returning to his first love: woman in her birthday suit, as she is in nature.

Of course, this is dangerous territory to be treading. Many have claimed that Araki’s photos have the effect of objectifying his subjects. Strangely, Araki concurs. He has stated that, until he met his wife, he photographed women as “sex-objects,” and that it was thanks to Yoko (his wife) that he began to “grasp the relationship between me and the women before me as a mutual, two-way thing. For the first time I was photoing a woman the way she was, not as an object” (from his interview in “ARAKI”, by TASHEN).

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Araki-Style

Visually speaking, the most common element — and the most impressionable (barring, of course, the models) — of an Araki photograph is the high-contrast black-and-white color palette. The use of this monochrome color scheme simplifies the images: the color becomes homogenized, the darks turn darker and the whites brighter, the skin’s texture comes into its own: the black shadow of goosebumps, dimples, pimples and pigmentations become backlit by the glut white of the body’s flesh. Much like the Shunga prints which prioritize the painting of each complex pubic strand, while leaving head-hair as two, simple, painted-in circles for scalp and bun, so too does Araki’s style of simplification draw attention to the crotch and its locks: amidst the prevalent bright-white, the black to be found at the top and middle of the model draws attention to — what for Araki is — the two most important points of the photograph, i.e., face and vagina. Even when his images are in color, they retain the grain and high-contrast common of grayscale photography; the colors are often under-saturated and shaded into the darker hues of an Art Deco Revival scheme — the texturizing effect is not lost. In terms of “artistic method” (quoted, because I feel Araki would scoff at the word), the most commonly used — at least in “Tokyo Lucky Hole” — is what’s called “snapshot” photography: photos taken almost compulsively and spontaneously, with no studio-set and no preparation done beforehand (besides readying a camera) — in the world of “snapshot,” subjects are not professionals, a better word would be “bystanders,” some are not even aware they are taking part in another man’s art. 

Gonzo Nature

This gives his photos a very documentary, somewhat Gonzo nature (his style is, much like his models, au naturel). The images are often out of focus, awkwardly framed or impaired with motion-blur, the expressions on faces are genuine though often unflattering — one is not likely to find the traditional “beauty shot” in which the model’s expression seems the labored result of an education in smiling. It would be ignorant to call these “mistakes,” as a mistake is only a mistake when it goes against the author's intent, and here one feels that Araki is completely indifferent to the technical quality of his photos, what he cares about is the subject: capturing a certain moment, expression, posture, in a sense: capturing life. Motion blur, over-exposure, and other “faults” have the effect of making the photographs feel more alive or uncalculated, not like fabricated scenes of drama. This creates a real sense of intimacy between Audience, Araki, and Subject. Seeing his photos one cannot help but feel they’ve become a voyeur.

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In the extended Premium edition of this article (which is more than twice as long) more on his groundbreaking book Tokyo Lucky Hole, the artist's fascination with Kabuki-cho — Shinjuku, Tokyo’s red-light district, more on the NABCAI act and the infamous “No Pants, No Touch” policy, Araki's striking contribution to the magazine Photo Age and their playful censorship battles with the authorities, 75 explicit photos of Kabuki-cho, and much (MUCH) more...

Click HERE for an article on Araki's book Polarnography, here for a treatise on Araki's Asian sensuality (shunga) in his work and here for Araki's impact on the kinbaku (bondage) pieces of Senju Shunga.

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