photobook
- Museum number
- 2007,3007.6
- Title
- Object: Senchimentaru na tabi センチメンタルな旅 (Sentimental Journey)
- Description
-
Photobook. One volume. First edition. One of a limited edition of 1000 copies. Signed copy.
- Production date
- 1971
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24 centimetres
-
Width: 24 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- By his own account this privately published work represents Araki's photographic position: Araki met his wife Aoki Yoko at Dentsu where she worked as a secretary. He married her on July 7th 1971 (an auspicious date) and the privately published work is a chronological account of their honeymoon. It seems that the act of the honeymoon itself was an occasion for nostalgia. Some of the images have a hazy quality to them, a feeling of oppressive heat, others are sharp and dark, a few feel like holiday-snaps of commemorative nature (kinen-shashin): Breakfast in a hotel-room in Kyoto decorated with the latest '70s wallpaper, views from the hotel-window, train-stations, photos of old wedding photos on a wall, gardens, a group of electrical massaging chairs, flower arrangements in a hallway, street-scenes, as well as the infamous sex-scenes with his wife, there is something singularly subdued (if not even unhappy) about the whole affair. And yet the narrative has a pull and the exposure of the most private of memories was Araki's very own attempt at 'honesty' in photography. A separately printed facsimile letter carries a text that seems to anticipate his resignation from Dentsu in the following year. “Dear Sir, I cannot stand it any longer. It has nothing to do with the constant diarrhoea that plagues me but rather with the fashion photographs that surround us. I simply cannot stand all those anonymous faces. All those naked bodies. All those private lives and scenes that are essentially a pack of lies.” The book caused a stir. Looking back at it in the 21st century it can be said to epitomise certain universal and essentially post-modern approaches to life. No copy in OCLC. (Titus Boeder, 4/07)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2007 Jun 13-Oct 7, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
2010 Jun-Oct, BM Japanese Galleries, ‘Japan from prehistory to the present’
2013-2014, Oct-Feb BM Japanese Galleries, ‘Japan from prehistory to the present’
2021 April - October, BM Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries
- Acquisition date
- 2007
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2007,3007.6
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: PB.6 (Photobook number)