Nobuyoshi Araki is known for his diaristic style or “shi-shashin” (I-photographs). He has published over 500 books throughout his carer. He is most renowned for imagery featuring bondage, his late wife, Yoko, as well as still lifes and nudes. It is, however, less known that Araki had explored experimental film projects since the mid 80s. Araki staged a live performance entitled Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story) at Cinema Rise, Tokyo, in 1986. It became the first of a series of live performances entitled Arakinema, which he staged until the mid-2000s in museums and art institutions around the world. Blue Period and Last Summer are made up primarily of nudes and portraits alternating with street scenes and images of flowers. Working directly from the 140 original slides used for both projections, the book successfully offers a fresh review of the photographer’s hidden oeuvre and regains the true spirit and atmosphere of the original Arakinema performances.

215 pages, 18 x 26 cm, softcover in box, Dashwood Books (New York).