Theater of Love

Nobuyoshi ARAKI

Dead stock

"I found a cabinet sized box labeled ‘Theater of Love’. I opened it to find about 150 prints. It’s from around ‘65. Back then I used to click away with my Olympus Pen F, making these patchy prints using thermal development on purpose; the woman, the era, and the place are all photographed there, it’s all expressed. So, I used to say ‘Theater of Love’ back then, eh. Well, anyway, it’s good, huh, they are good photos. This sort of thing isn’t going to happen on digital."

Nobuyoshi Araki, December 2010

-Excerpt from exhibition press release, Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film Roppongi 2011

Nobuyoshi Araki’s Theater of Love brings together a collection of unpublished works taken during the photographer’s early photographic career whilst still employed at Dentsu. Published by Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film and Zen Foto Gallery in 2011 to coincide with it’s inaugural exhibition of Araki’s works, Theater of Love brilliantly encapsulates a period of time held by memory and re-lived through the photographic image.

Book Size
180 x 133 mm
Pages
125 pages, 119 images
Binding
Softcover
Publication Date
2011
Language
Japanese
Limited Edition
1000

Artist Profile

Nobuyoshi ARAKI

Araki was born in Shitaya-ku (now Taito-ku), Tokyo. Araki graduated from photography faculty at Chiba University and worked at advertising agency Dentsu as an commercial photographer. Here, Araki met his future wife, an essayist Yōko Araki. After they were married in 1971, Araki published a book of pictures of his wife taken during their honeymoon titled Sentimental Journey ( Yōko died in 1990). In 1972, Araki resigned from Dentsu and became a freelance photographer. His works are held in numerous museum collections including the Tate and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.