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Sophie Calle is this French babe, who created a style of art from observing people and documenting their actions.  What makes her interesting is that she is French and the French are incredibly private people.  So she was very counter culture for her time…

Calle is also quite respected and while her work could be categorized in the blah of modern art and all that makes it so not classical art.  Her work is diverse and interesting, her most interesting work to me is her “Exquisite Pain” exhibit which originally started as what would probably have been an exotic tour of various locales and blah, blah, blah, but the personal, intercedes and towards the end of her journey it becomes much more then bullshit voyeurism as the inside is turned out and Calle reveals herself.  Even in what is the brief outline of “Exquisite Pain” you can sense that this is the personal artist pain that has the taste of fat and sugar that our truly voyeuristic taste buds want anyway.    

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Nobuyoshi Araki: Akt-Tokyo, 1971-1991
C-Print, 60 x 48 cm © by Nobuyoshi Araki
Gift from Andreas Reinhart

Nobuyoshi Araki is quite interesting, with a style which has been mimicked for years, you feel the real thing in the lighting or sometimes the lack of lighting, which captures the mood and the emotion of the subject.  In much of his nude work, a sense of isolation hangs around in the corners of the image.  There is also a layering effect which comes and is very visually comparative to water. 

With his models, Araki always seems to capture a festering desperateness, in the pose and the eyes.  His subjects never look frozen in pose, so much as captured at being who they are and that “who” might very well be the image you are not supposed to see. 

What does this mean with much of his bondage work? It’s hard to say, look closely though and the sadomasochistic edge of invoking pain is not evident in the work.  Quite the contrary, many of his nude bondage shots are almost comical as the models either invariably look deeply into the camera with almost nonchalant disinterest, or stare off, as if waiting for the bus. 

Only talking about his nude work would be so American, but Nobuyoshi Araki is much more diverse then that, his treatment of nature and in particular his photography with plants and flowers is most amazing and very idealistic.  Sharp color compete to bleed from gradient to extreme.  His backgrounds are often time manufactured, with solid colored backdrops or pointing at a unregistered light source, giving a sense of purity and untainted character to this love for botanical.  

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