Shinzi Katoh is a famed Japanese designer of zakka, meaning ‘many things’. It’s the term for everything and anything that spruces up your home, life and outlook. It’s the art of seeing beauty in the boring and the mundane.
The New York Times just did a photo feature on shopdropping, a form of ‘culture jamming’ where artists covertly leave their work amid the products on the shelves of stores.
“Nobuyoshi Araki: Self, Life, Death (Limited Edition)”
Araki has been described as a pornographer, a monster, a genius, a “dirty uncle” and much else besides. He has called himself most of these things, too, and makes much of his persona as a somewhat cartoonish, priapic little devil, as though he were himself a character in an erotic 18th-century drawing of the Floating World.
This major publication provides the most comprehensive overview yet of Araki’s prolific 40 year career. Araki’s key series of works are included alongside many rare and previously unpublished photographs. Featuring an interview and essays by writers from Japan and Europe, this book examines Araki from a broad range of perspectives and gives a cultural context to his work. Also included are a large selection of Araki’s writings, translated into English for the first time, as well as complete illustrated and annotated bibliography of his own books. Reflecting Araki’s principle of “I-photography”, the book is divided into three sections that follow the main recurring themes in his work: Self, Life and Death.
Get your own cute little Japanese bird saying “Nani?” for free .
