Araki

The first title in TASCHEN's new limited series is Araki, an enormous and unique book with a print run of only 2,500 copies. The subject is Japanese photographer Araki, a man who talks about life through photographs. His powerful oeuvre, decades’ worth of images, has been pared down to about 1,000 photographs which tell the story of Araki and comprise the ultimate retrospective collection of his work.

Known best for his intimate, snapshot-style images of women often tied up with ropes (kinbaku, or Japanese rope-tying art) and of colorful, sensual flowers, Araki is an artist who reacts strongly to his emotions and uses photography to experience them more fully. Obsessed with women, Araki seeks to come closer to them through photography, using ropes like an embrace and the click of the shutter like a kiss. His work is at once shocking and mysteriously tender; a deeply personal artist, Araki is not afraid of his emotions nor of showing them to the world.

All color illustrations are color-separated and reproduced in Aniva, the finest reproduction technique available today, which provides unequaled intensity and color range. The duotone illustrations are made with Novatone, a special treatment for black-and-white images that produces exquisite tonal range and density.

“This book reveals everything about me. It’s been a 60-year contract. Photography is love and death—that’ll be my epitaph.”
—Araki