Nobuyoshi Araki. Impossible Love—Vintage Photographs

A young woman with her legs spread wide; buttoned-up workers on a city street. The juxtaposition of intimate, private scenes against snapshots of nameless passers-by was an early commentary on the heterogeneity and the dysfunctionality of Japanese society. In 1973, Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki (*1940 in Toyko) published these works in a book of image pairs showing life in Tokyo between 1969 and 1973, calling the societies and moral values into question. Today, he is one of the most influential and widely discussed artists in the world whose work deals with nakedness, sexuality, and the body in a radical and realistic way. What is in equal parts moving and unsettling to the viewer is the photographer’s lack of distance. His extreme intimacy with the subjects and the situations depicted is unique and revolutionary. As one of the pioneers of intimate, subjective photography, Araki not only is part of his subjects’ lives; he also plays a central role in his own photographs. In some works, he gets physical by ripping, cutting, and recomposing his images.

Curated by Felix Hoffmann, the exhibition Nobuyoshi Araki . Impossible Love—Vintage Photographs includes previously unpublished series of his early works, combined with a selection of his recent series Flower / Doll, Sky / Winds, and Polaroid collages.

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C/O Berlin Foundation, Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstraße 22–24, 10623 Berlin
Opening hours: Täglich 11–20 Uhr
Admission: 10 euros, reduced tickets 6 euros

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