In Tokyo Still Life, Araki's images of women bound and in sexually provocative positions are juxtaposed by images of ordinary life in Tokyo, the trees, the market stalls, men on their way to work, children playing, people on trains, a woman standing at a crossing, boys going to school, a grandmother and her dog. Araki states; 'If Tokyo is a city heading for death - "Isn't Tokyo a gigantic graveyard! Are we really alive!, Araki also thinks of the city as "the womb from which I was born, I don't imagine Tokyo as something abstract...but a place where I feel good."' (Araki:2001:8)
Tokyo Still Life (2001) Nobuyoshi Araki (P64)
These images present life Keehan states of the work; 'All these strands are cross-informed, so that daily life, the natural world and the fabric of the city assume powerful erotic qualities, all operating as metaphors for the body and relationships' (Keehan, 2014) I would disagree with this statement as I don't think that these images of the city and its people all have erotic qualities, or are metaphors for the body. These are people and things that are intertwined within the city, the fabric of the city, yes, they make wonder and life and the things that they touch and eat are important, the streets they walk on the buildings they inhabit. I have been considering these things, the psychogeography of my own life as I walk my own city, knowing every crevice and pothole, seeing the same faces and scenes. I also consider my own interior world inside my own home. I have also been reading Perec's 'Things' Here there are descriptions of interiors; 'A bedside table, with an openwork copper band running round three of its sides, would support a silver candlestick lamp topped with a very pale grey silk shade, a square carriage clock, a rose in a stem vase.' (Perec: 2011:23) These to me are like the photographs of Araki they are the things we live with, that surround us, perhaps engulf us, expand us and suffocate us.
Prior to Tokyo Still Life Araki; 'obsessively photographed fellow passengers during his daily trips to and from work on the Tokyo subway. Yawning businessmen, women dozing with their legs splayed, kids who guessed what he was up to and mugged for the camera – Araki captured them all on film and without using a viewfinder.' (Exibart Street, 2019) this need to capture life within the lens to keep it and savour it, to snap and not see to be surprised. This is the joy of these kinds of images, people unaware, themselves in public but within themselves.
The things that interest me here are the descriptive images and text, the ordinary things that are our lives. I am interested in the inner life of the domestic environment and often as I walk into my own home when I am alone I have totemistic objects all over the home I touch these things every day. They are part of me and I become part of them. I want to write about these things and photograph these and the exterior things that are part of my psyche in the city. I will begin with both words and text and I will post the beginnings of these thoughts and pictures and see where they might lead.
In preparation for using Blurb I just checked and updated my profile
References
Araki N. (2001) Tokyo Still Life, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Exibart Street (2019). Subway Love - Nobuyoshi Araki - Exibart Street. [online] Exibart Street. Available at: https://www.exibartstreet.com/news/subway-love-nobuyoshi-araki/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2024].
Keehan, R. (2014). ESSAY: Nobuyoshi Araki’s photographs | QAGOMA Collection Online. [online] Qld.gov.au. Available at: https://collection.qagoma.qld.gov.au/node/48890 [Accessed 3 Nov. 2024].
Perec G. (2011) Things/A Story of the Sixties with A Man Asleep, Vintage, Random House, London.
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