Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki’s latest show, “Love on the Left Eye,” which opened on his birthday in accord with an annual tradition of the artist to commemorate life, remixes frozen erotic poses with surface studies—for example, Tokyo’s urban space, the rusty cargo bed of a truck passing, a panel cutting a passerby out of sight. Araki has compiled a visual diary of sixty-five prints, hung neatly across the gallery. Included is an image of a woman dressed in a flowered robe holding a blue toy carp—a symbol of love—as well as a range of women’s bodies exposed in provocative poses. Araki soaked the right half of the negatives in black marker ink before printing the photographs, effectively blotting out that part of the image. The technique gestures at his own physicality, specifically a retinal-artery obstruction that came about in 2013 and permanently deprived him of half his sight. At that same time, the blinking craquelé of vanishing surfaces adds a new layer of formal perception.

There are also more personal images—for instance, a fantastic zoo of dinosaur toys kept on his terrace—which mix emblems of love and death in self-ironic combinations, creating not just a cinematographic foray but a fragmented dictionary of beloved sites. For instance, an image of Tokyo covered up in heavy snow, resounds with famous views of his series “Winter Journey,” 1990, which documented the untimely passing of his late wife, Yoko. Reflecting how his own mortal body deteriorates, Araki grants a vital image of perception.