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vienna contemporary 2020

With his photographs, Araki developed a unique pictorial signature, a representation of human passions that reaches beyond Japanese culture, partly poetic, partly provocative. For his characteristic gaze, he coined the term "photographic ego", by which he understands the captivating alternation of fiction, truth and desire. His controversial nudes and intimate studies of the female body, in which influences from the erotic iconography of the Edo period (time of peace and prosperity in Japan, 1603-1868) and the glossy aesthetics of the advertising and media world can be seen, made him internationally famous and are part of a broad canon of motifs with which the artist describes his world.

Araki has published around 500 illustrated books in the course of his career. In his home country he has long been a media star. His enormous popularity in Japan was accompanied by growing international interest, beginning in the 1990s. In the meantime, he is considered one of the most influential figures in the current art landscape - even beyond the field of photography.