Nobuyoshi Araki - ULTIMATE Evening & Photographs Day Sales London Thursday, May 17, 2018 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Kamel Mennour, Paris and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, for many
    The Piero Bisazza Collection, Italy

  • Catalogue Essay

    ‘Why do they come across as erotic? Because I shot them. That’s what my photos are.’

    Nobuyoshi Araki

    In 2009, after Piero Bisazza had started collecting Polaroids by Nobuyoshi Araki, he invited the Japanese photographer to shoot a campaign for his mosaic company Bisazza. ‘I’ve always admired Araki's photographic style, in particular his use of colour,’ Piero explains. ‘In our advertising campaign, Araki was able to harmoniously match the brilliance of the golden mosaics with the vivid colours of the models’ kimonos.’ Eight years later in 2017, the Bisazza Foundation presented a solo exhibition of Araki’s work from the 1970s onwards with his Tokyo, kinbaku [bondage] and flora images, as well as his more recent work such as his 2014 Love on the Left Eye series. The exhibition featured an installation around Araki’s 2009 Bisazza campaign with a video of the artist painting onto the mosaic tiles and creating the advertising images.

    The Polaroid camera is one of the many tools Araki uses to sustain his prolific output. Throughout his unrivalled six-decade-long career, Araki, who will be 78 in May this year, has documented the people, events and sights that move him. He is constantly in the act of image-making and re-examining what it means to take photographs. Each taken with a Polaroid 600 camera, the present lot features 36 unique Polaroids of nudes, bondage and flowers, and together celebrate Araki's distinctive eroticism.

    Please refer to lots 152 – 172 for Polaroids from the Piero Bisazza Collection in the Photographs Day Sale.

ULTIMATE Polaroids from the Piero Bisazza Collection

7

36 Polaroids

n.d.
36 unique Polaroid Type 600 prints.
Each image: 7.8 x 7.6 cm (3 1/8 x 2 7/8 in.)
Each sheet: 10.7 x 8.7 cm (4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in.)

Four signed in ink in the margins; 32 signed in ink on the verso.

Each work is unique.

Estimate
£10,000 - 15,000 

Sold for £27,500

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+33 1 53 71 77 87

Yuka Yamaji
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4098

ULTIMATE Evening & Photographs Day Sales

London Auction 18 May 2018