Untitled, 1971, from the series The Park

Nobuyoshi Araki In Conversation With Kohei Yoshiyuki, from the September 1979 issue of Weekend Super

NOBUYOSHI ARAKI: I don’t know you that well. I know who you are, but readers don’t know much about you. Why don’t you tell them about yourself? I’m sure they would like to know when you were born, for instance. How old are you? What interests you? What kind of work are you doing? I’ll bet you’re not in your twenties.

KOHEI YOSHIYUKI: I was born in 1946.

NA: As the genius of photography, I’d like to introduce Yoshiyuki Kohei to our readers. You created a huge sensation by taking voyeuristic photographs of people having sex, and of voyeurs – peepers – watching people having sex, with infrared film. A lot of people made a lot of noise about them, but my critique consisted of exactly one line: “These are what I call photographs” (laughter). After that we met and chatted now and then, but I haven’t seen you for quite a while. Recently I received an invitation to your solo show. I couldn’t go because I was busy, but I mentioned it to the editor of Weekend Super, and heard later that he went to see it. When I asked him about it, he said he liked the way the photographs were exhibited.

KY: I turned out all the lights in the space, and gave each visitor a flashlight. That way I was reconstructing the original settings. I also blew the photos up to life size.

NA: You recreated the original settings. I didn’t get to the exhibition, so I don’t know exactly what you mean. Viewers went into a dark room with a flashlight and looked at the photographs? But that way, you can only see part of them.

KY: Yes, that’s how I wanted them to be viewed. I wanted people to look at the bodies in the photographs an inch at a time. But this is an uneasy situation. When it’s completely dark, the whole photograph is illuminated, but the viewer looks at it section by section. My original concept involved a corridor where points of light would be focused on the photographs. Viewers would look at them slowly … carefully.

NA: I see what you mean.

KY: They might even touch the photos. That’s how I wanted to exhibit them. But then I realized that viewers would suffer if I forced them to look at the photographs in that way. So, that time I just used a board as a partition in the middle of the space.

NA: I didn’t see the photographs, but that sounds interesting. And I think people could see what you were aiming for. But you’re focusing too much on how you show them. Five years ago, you wanted to exhibit them in a certain way, and the idea implanted itself in your brain until it became sort of an obsession. It’s like coming into some money and deciding to buy a nice gift for a girl you had a crush on long ago.

KY: Yeah, I guess you could say that.

NA: And it’s how you’d feel when the girl said, “Oh no, nobody does that anymore,” isn’t it?

KY: In a way.

NA: The photographs are definitely good, so maybe you should have exhibited them more straightforwardly. They are powerful enough to thrill anyone who comes to see them. The type of exhibition you’re talking about reminds me of a woman trapped in a bad relationship.

KY: I really enjoyed watching people looking at the photographs. Since the points of light were also their lines of sight, I saw things that were totally unexpected.

NA: That kind of thing was the mainstream in contemporary art not too long ago. If you asked me, I’d say go back to simple ways of exhibiting photographs. I’d tell fine artists to return to oil paintings and photographers to return to photographs.

KY: But your activities have a conceptual aspect to them.

NA: Yes, but when you exhibit photographs, you have to do it with conviction. And I heard you didn’t issue many invitations. That was a bad idea. It’s a shame you didn’t make a really spectacular gesture.

KY: I’m a coward.

Untitled, 1971, from the series The Park

NA: Cowards don’t go around spying on people and photographing them having sex. What was your motivation?

KY: It had never occurred to me to take that kind of photograph. I knew about peeping, though, and then one day I stumbled onto a scene – an incredible scene (laughter). That was when I was still an amateur. At that time, there weren’t many skyscrapers in front of Chuo Park in Shinjuku. There was a model apartment in one of them. I was walking behind it with a friend (we had just finished a shoot), when we saw something amazing!

NA: “Something.” I like your choice of words.

KY: Yes! I was shocked. They were actually fucking.

NA: They were?

KY: Yes. When I saw them, I knew this was something I had to photograph.

NA: You didn’t right then?

KY: I had my camera, but it was dark. After that I did some research. I found out that Toshiba made flashbulbs – infrared flashbulbs. Before I had a chance to use more than a few of them, they were discontinued. Then I looked around for filters, and ended up using two tricolor separation filters. After a while I heard that Kodak had some flashbulbs, so I used them. At that time, infrared flash units didn’t exist. Sunpak came out with them after I took these photos.

NA: So they’re making them now?

KY: Yes. Anybody can take photographs like these.

NA: Wow! Guess I won’t be able to have sex in dark places anymore. Are the people you photograph totally unaware of what’s going on? I’ve never used equipment like that, so I have no idea.

KY: The light flashes – a red light. I’d better not say any more (laughter).

NA: Like the lights on a passing car, from the subjects’ point of view?

KY: That’s right. Anyway, they’re so engrossed in what they’re doing that even a lot of light shouldn’t faze them.

NA: Let’s have a look at the photos. Yeah, these are amazing! Because they’re really fucking. Look at him giving it to her! You need a lot of nerve to take photographs like these. Mine are so pseudo-documentaries, so everything is staged (laughter). These days it’s the women who are aggressive. At Shinjuku Gyoen, for instance, the women are on top.

KY: I saw that sometimes, too. But I can’t photograph that. If the guy’s on the bottom, he’ll notice the camera.

NA: Look at this one!

KY: This is the real thing, too. But the guy was hopeless. He couldn’t get it up. The ambience made him self-conscious, I guess. I was right near them, listening and thinking he’d get it together. But then he said, “It’s no good” (laughter).

NA: The wonderful thing about this photograph is that it shows the peeper. It’s a self-portrait. It shows your shadow. I really like that. It’s probably strange to talk about photography theory in a context like this, but this is what a photograph is supposed to be. Oh, look, the peeper is touching her. He’s assisting. Wasn’t it hard to shoot these photographs?

KY: Well, it’s harder to photograph the peepers. But at that time, nobody ever dreamed they’d be photographed. I had a tiny camera with a flash attachment. I think it would be almost impossible to do that now.

NA: But you could do it openly, couldn’t you? Just grab one shot with your flash, and then run.

KY: I guess so. Maybe that’s the way to do it.

NA: Then you get different reactions. Maybe the peepers would be more upset at you than the couples for spoiling their fun, and start chasing you. Then you’d photograph their reaction.

KY: Maybe if I took sequential photographs. Wonder what would happen if I yelled out to them while they’re doing it, then took a flash photo.

NA: That’s an excellent idea. What I’ve been doing is taking photographs at night with a small flash, declaring, “These lightscapes are obscene!” It’s fun when you have only seconds to get a shot, and the reaction is very clear.

KY: Yes, it is fun.

Untitled, 1971, from the series The Park

NA: Maybe everybody will be doing it this summer, once word about the Sunpak flash-unit spreads.

KY: I heard the company got a lot of inquiries after my show.

NA: Uh, oh!

KY: Yeah. I won’t be able to do my work (laughter).

NA: You mean nobody has ever come after you when you took photos like this?

KY: Never.

NA: Wow! Maybe you’re a Ninja.

KY: The guy who developed the Sunpak infrared strobe is a real lecher and a lot of fun.

NA: Really? He must have done a lot of fieldwork.

KY: Yes. I guess that’s where the idea came from.

NA: Lechers are the only hope for the twenty-first century. Only lechers come up with good ideas. Only lechers take good photos. So are you one, too?

KY: I think I’m completely ordinary, but I think there’s a little lecher in everyone.

NA: I guess it’s a matter of degree. I am fascinated by this topic. I like the way the legs are open here.

KY: I think she was a student – really cute. Others are much more outrageous. They get carried away.

NA: What do you mean?

KY: Once a couple walked over and laid a piece of cloth on the ground. I thought, “They’re going to do it,” and then they started fucking. The guy pulled his pants down to his knees. But most of them do it in the missionary position. Or standing up. They do it in the rain, after everyone else has left the park.

NA: That’s their chance!

KY: Right. There’s nobody around then.

NA: Why do they go to the park to fuck? Have they done it everywhere else already?

KY: I don’t think that’s why. Even if the girl isn’t thrilled about having sex there, the guy might say, “Let’s do it here.” Maybe they’ve been drinking nearby or something. But only couples who’ve had sex before fuck in a park. You can always spot them because they walk fast.

NA: Really? So you stand at the entrance watching. Then you see a couple walking fast, so you know you’ll get some shots?

KY: That’s definitely what I look for.

NA: I’m not a peeper, but I once tried to spot couples headed for love hotels [hotels that charge by the hour] at Shinjuku Station. My hunches were usually right. You can tell.

KY: I’ve never seen a couple who aren’t already having sex fuck in a park. Foreplay takes too long, and the peepers will gather around, and the opportunity is gone. They have to have had sex at least once. Even if the girl doesn’t feel like it, guys want to do it in the park. I’ve overheard their conversations.

NA: I’d like to observe sometime. We could organize a tour. Let’s do a grand tour, with you as the guide. Can you imagine a bunch of photographers filing into a park (laughter)?

KY: A photo session.

NA: Right. Once our tour leader raises his flag, the flashes will go off all at once (laughter). The surprised subjects will stare at us, and we’ll photograph that, too. A colleague and I once shot a couple having sex in a car, from a microbus. When the first flash goes off, they’re stunned. Then you take another shot.
So this time we’ll each use two flash units, not infrared, grab our shots and run away. We’ll run away, or we could bring our own bodyguards, who’ll scare them.

KY: You can’t threaten people. You can photograph them, but the law …

NA: So photographing them isn’t illegal?

KY: No, as long as you don’t say anything. If you keep quiet, take your photos and run, it’s okay.

NA: Really? It sounds almost criminal. You know, you could blackmail people with the photos.

KY: That’s true.

NA: So, let’s do this, all right? This summer, and make a big event of it. It’d be a shame to waste the opportunity.

KY: This summer, then!

NA: Yes, yes. Watch out, everybody. Yoshiyuki is coming (laughter).

ASX CHANNEL: KOHEI YOSHIYUKI

All images © copyright the photographer and/or publisher

Excerpt from a text by Germano Celant, “Araki – Tokyomania,” Edition Mennour, Paris, 2000, pp. 4-5.

Araki’s story is that of a man living in a world-the Japan of the 1960s where the sexual is concealed and goes unmentioned. To free himself from that negation and complex, he began to shoot photographs that spill over from that world, spitting out as it were its dark nocturnal atmosphere. He relied on his camera alone to capture that darkness and repression, which became his angel and his demon.

He didn’t sublimate them, but revealed them to themselves. He shows the shame and the misshapen, the ugly and the sublime, the vulgar and the elegant in a monolog-expression of pleasure that is “in him” as much as it is of the world. His outlook is neutral and merely reveals the phenomenon of the body, female and occasionally male, and its incomparable properties of beauty and sensual “materiality,” freed from any temporal or spatial dimension, action, or narrative. He offers us a being in itself, at its zero degree of passive or active sexual gesturality, which is presented as both an angelic and a demonic creature.

Each lives in a perfect and absolute silence, which renders its solitude desperate and ironic, for it is entrusted with a simple object, a feather or a shoe, a kimono or a cigarette, and seems to jealously guard it as if it were a treasure. These are figures that, albeit voracious, possess nothing for they have only their nudity, imperious, obscene, impertinent, and cruel, until that last vestige of humanity is snuffed out and they live forevermore an existence condemned to inauthenticity and passivity in which they appear like slaves and servants, pinned down and linked to the demented laws of the possessive, domineering desire that engulfs them and spits them out, always the same.

And although continuous repetition pulls them into the void of complete inexistence, they nevertheless exist because they serve to maintain photographic communication, which in itself communicates nothing, save perhaps the existence of a photographic language that is ambiguous and feigned: an illusion or image that is abstraction…

Besides the avalanche of erotic subjects, Araki introduces into his work the entire range of possible communication techniques. He uses indifferently slides, posters, color photocopies, film, Polaroid, color and black-and-white photographs, large and small formats, to construct his erotic mosaics of solitude, which he displays on walls and ceilings or spreads out over the floor in museums and galleries. The idea is to record a world of silent bodies, moving in an icy sensuality where immaculate and obscene pleasures of sex and politics, day to day or novel, create a choreography of the senses in which the viewer is invited to take part as an active or passive…

ASX CHANNEL: NOBUYOSHI ARAKI

Aperture Executive Director Chris Boot speaks with Daido Moriyama and Ivan Vartanian about PRINTING SHOW – TKY.

Organized by Ivan Vartanian, PRINTING SHOW is a recreation of Daido Moriyama’s 1974 performance of the same name. Following the format of the original performance as closely as possible, in lieu of prints mounted on the gallery walls, visitors to the gallery will find the photographer stationed at a photocopy machine duplicating his photographic prints. As was done forty years ago, these photocopied sheets will be assembled and staple-bound with a silk-screened cover printed in the gallery space during the performance.