Power and Pleasure: take a look at Japanese photographer Araki’s erotic polaroids

[O]ne of the original creative innovators, Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki has broken boundaries since he started out. Born in 1940, his work was controversial at the best of times: rising to notoriety in 1971 for his photography series Un Voyage Sentimental, he captured his wife on their honeymoon in both banal and exceptionally intimate moments. Portraying women in sexualised and fetishised circumstances, Araki’s work is both raw and somewhat surreal.

Typically working in black-and-white photography, these polaroids offer a rare look into his candid world. Describing that “rather than shooting something that looks like a professional photography, I want my work to feel intimate, like someone in the subject’s inner circle shot them”. Juxtaposing nudes with flora is his latest project, and 36 of these groundbreaking pieces are going up for auction this weekend at Phillips London. A part of the renowned Piero Bisazza Collection, this is a rare opportunity for a piece of photographic history, and if you don’t have a spare £10,000, well that’s ok because you can take a peek into the collection below…

Lot 7, NOBUYOSHI ARAKI, 36 Polaroids n.d. 36 unique Polaroid Type 600 prints. Estimate: £10,000 – 15,000. Find out more about the collection on the Phillips website.