Artist: Nobuyoshi Araki
Opening: Aug. 1st (Sat.) 15:30 – 18:00
Duration: Aug. 1st – Sep. 6th
L-Art Gallery, Chengdu
On August 1st, L-Art Gallery will present “Left Eye”, the solo exhibition of the legendary and controversial Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki. This exhibition will showcase Araki’s Polaroid collage works created during 2010 and 2014.
结界kekkai,9×10.5cm,拍立得拼贴 Polaroid Collage,2010-2014
结界kekkai,9×10.5cm,拍立得拼贴 Polaroid Collage,2010 -2014
Because of prostate cancer, Araki has retinal arterial obstruction. He lost the right eyesight completely by the year of 2014. During this period of time, by cutting and collaging photos, Araki interpreted the world in his left eye and the darkness in his right eye. Araki named this series of works “Sm-bandha”. This word comes from Buddhism, which differentiates the sanctuary and the secular world. Araki said, “The afterimage in the photo is our original world, but now it is abandoned and cut. That cut produces new story, new clue, new monogatari and new love for us to look for.” “Sm-bandha” is a very small space, which allows two different worlds to collide and join with each other. It’s like some sort of psychological test: we all long for reading something from it, however we are the ones to be read.
结界kekkai,9×10.5cm,拍立得拼贴 Polaroid Collage,2010- 2014
The themes of this series of works are “erotic binding”, “flowers”, “portraits”, “daily life and balcony”, “sky” and “black window”, etc. The images are filled with Araki-style binding and SM elements. In the works, street scenes, flowers, dolls or female bodies integrate with each other in a weird way. In some of the works, image on the right is blurry and even blackened, symbolizing Arak’s blind right eye and the world that forever lost in it.
Araki devotes his whole life photographing Tokyo, a place he lives and works and never wanting to leave. Day and night, he wanders around the streets, night clubs and motels of this city to catch those extremely powerful and soul-penetrating images. As Araki said himself, “Some people look at my works and say ‘That’s it?’. As a matter of fact, ‘That’s it’ is good, because that’s photography, if you add something else, you can’t feel photography itself. Photography is photographing “things” and making people feel them, and that’s enough.”
This exhibition lasts for Sep. 6th, Thanks for the supporting from Aura Gallery Beijing.
