ARAKI - XXL

Big time Araki - Size does matter!"This book reveals everything about me.It's been a 60-year contract. Photography is love and death-that'll be myepitaph." The first title in our new TASCHEN limited series is Araki, an enormousand unique book with a print run of only 2,500 copies. The subject isJapanese photographer Araki, a man who talks about life throughphotographs. His powerful oeuvre, decades' worth of images, has been pareddown to about 1,000 photographs which tell the story of Araki and comprisethe ultimate retrospective collection of his work. Known best for his intimate, snapshot-style images of women often tied upwith ropes (kinbaku, Japanese rope-tying art) and of colorful, sensualflowers, Araki is an artist who reacts strongly to his emotions and usesphotography to experience them more fully. Obsessed with women, Arakiseeks to come closer to them through photography, using ropes like anembrace and the click of the shutter like a kiss. His work is at onceshocking and mysteriously tender; a deeply personal artist, Araki is notafraid of his emotions nor of showing them to the world.