An engineer by training, Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940 in Tokyo) became a cameraman, then a photographer. In 1971 he published Sentimental Journey, where his marriage and wedding night were revealed in the form of a photographic diary. From the 1980s, he used color photocopying as a means of presenting his photographs which depict flowers and still lifes, prostitutes and landscapes of the streets of Tokyo. Araki’s work reveals the changes in Japanese culture through an autobiographical approach, interweaving themes of eroticism, death, time and the city. A prolific artist, media figure in Japan, Araki initiated an autofictive work very early on, inspiring artists such as Sophie Calle or Roman Opalka.
