Japanese erotic photographer Nobuyoshi Araki reflects on death ahead of Hong Kong show
Araki has been called a pornographer and an exploiter, something he shrugs off. Just don't call me an artist, he tells Julian Ryall
Since he fought off cancer in 2008, photographer Nobuyoshi Araki has given up many of his vices. He no longer drinks the Bombay Sapphire gin or Wild Turkey bourbon that he once so enjoyed, while the cigarettes have also been consigned to the past. But he can't bring himself to give up his last vice, the one that has always had him in its thrall: beautiful women.
"All I drink now is mojitos with no rum, but lots of love instead," the impish Araki says. "I stopped drinking and smoking when I got sick and the only thing that I like to smoke now is the nipple of a beautiful woman."
He says this with another of his smiles, but it is not meant to shock or offend. It's simply Araki being honest about the latest phase of a career that has traversed seven-and-a-half decades and will see him collaborate with two more of Japan's most famous photographers for an upcoming exhibition organised by The Hong Kong Contemporary Art Foundation.
"Up Close: Eroticism in the works of Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki" opens at The Space for a nine-day run from October 16. It will include nearly 50 works that explore sexual experience as a metaphor for life and include a daily programme of screenings of documentaries examining Japan's avant-garde art movement.
Araki's contributions to the exhibition include a number of collages of semi-clothed women against photographs of clouded skies from his "My Ender" series, created shortly after he underwent surgery for prostate cancer, as well as works from the earlier "Marvellous Tales of Black Ink" collection, featuring naked women tied up and juxtaposed against sex toys. Other works are from his "Hana Kinbaku" collection, taken in 2008, and "Love on the Left Eye" series, published in 2014 after Araki lost virtually all vision in his right eye.