Nobuyoshi Araki, HI-NIKKI (NON-DIARY-DIARY), 2016

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary in 2014, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain asked the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki to take a photograph every day, that would then be published weekly on its website in the shape of a slide show. Getting caught in the game, Araki took more than one picture a day from March to May 2014, producing 1,250 colour photographs featuring views of Tokyo, portraits of young women, sensual still-lifes, or shots taken at restaurants or in a small bar in the district of Kabuki-cho, one of his favourite spots. The Fondation Cartier collated all the images into one book, Hi-Nikki (Non-Diary Diary), offering a sumptuous showcase of this rich digital project and inviting the reader to dive into the daily life of a prolific artist.

Nobuyoshi Araki (b. Tokyo, 1940) invented the genre of the false photographic journal in 1980. Araki takes his inspiration in the history of his country, his daily life and Japanese eroticism. Situated somewhere on the border between autobiography and the diary, his work features spontaneous pictures of astaged situations.