LONDON, ENGLAND.-The Barbican Art Gallery presents Araki: Self•Life•Death, on view through January 22, 2006. One of the most radical and controversial photographers of our time, Nobuyoshi Araki documents social taboos surrounding sexuality and death. Encompassing contemporary Japanese sub-culture, from poetic scenes of old Tokyo, to the dark side of urban life and eroticized female bodies in a variety of fantasy settings. This is the first major show by Araki in London. The exhibition contains work of an adult nature. The exhibition is unsuitable for children and parental guidance is advised.

Nobuyoshi Araki is arguably Japan’s greatest living photographer, and certainly its most controversial. Araki’s inexhaustible creative energy is clearly evident in the 300 books he has published over the last four decades, while his photographs, which often challenge social taboos surrounding sex and death, have drawn critical attention throughout the world. Self-Life-Death is the first major exhibition of Araki’s work to be held in London. It provides the most comprehensive overview yet of his prolific 40-year career.

For Araki, photography began as a visual diary that grew into a hyperactive, obsessive-compulsive flood of images until the point of separation between his life and his photography crumbled. "Photography is Life!" he declared. He photographs as continuously as he breathes.

Encompassing contemporary Japanese sub-culture, Araki’s subjects range from poetic scenes of old Tokyo to erotic images of kimono-clad women bound in rope and shots of nudes with plastic dinosaurs (Araki’s alter-ego) and exotic flowers as props. The exhibition is arranged thematically to highlight the recurring themes in Araki’s work: self, life and death. It features many of Araki’s most significant works, from the early 1960s to today, including images of Tokyo’s Shitamachi (downtown) children, Satchin and Mabo (1963); Sentimental Journey (1971) an intimate collection of ’diary’ photographs of his honeymoon; and Tokyo Nude (1989) a group of large-format photographs, displayed in pairs, contrasting languid nudes with desolate Tokyo streets.

Other major works include Erotos (1993), Colour-eros (2005) and Japanese Faces (a project Araki has been working on since 2002). Many rare images, previously unpublished outside Japan, are presented, together with new works created specially for the show. The exhibition also features an impressive display of books published by Araki, as well as sketchbooks, scrapbooks, Xerox photo-albums and other working materials exhibited for the first time.

Born in 1940, Araki belongs to a generation of photographers who emerged in the late 1960s, when Japan had finally recovered from the impact of the Second World War. While the country was experiencing radical transformation with rapid economic growth and urbanization, this generation of photographers began to explore new directions in style and subject, beyond the existing norms of Japanese photography at the time such as art, photo-journalism and advertising.

In 1971 Araki privately published Sentimental Journey, an intimate account of his honeymoon with his wife Yoko. In the preface of the book, Araki declared that his ’point of departure as a photographer was love ... and the idea of an "I-novel"’: a form of Japanese fiction written autobiographically and in the first person. With this, Araki established a new genre, ’I-photography’, in which his own life and feelings became the central subject of his work. The idea was to have a great impact on a younger generation of Japanese photographers, especially in the 1990s.

By 1990 - the year that marked the death of Yoko - Araki had produced an immense body of work. Through his photographs he created his own universe, where the themes of sex, self, life and death are closely entwined. Tokyo, Araki’s home city, often features as a motif in his work, while his rich visual vocabulary is drawn from the erotic Shunga of the Edo period (1600-1867) as well as the glossy imagery of the new commercial culture. Through his innovative approach to his medium -sometimes combining painting, drawing and film - Araki has become an influential figure in contemporary art, beyond the field of photography.