Seen: Aramame アラマメ
Who: Nobuyoshi Araki x Mame Kurugochi
Where: Morioka Shoten, Ginza
When: July 13 - 24, 2016 (Open daily 1:00 - 8:00pm)
Aramame is a photographic collaboration between Nobuyoshi Araki and Mame Kuroguchi, a young and upcoming Japanese fashion designer whose label, Mame, burst on the scene just five years ago.
For this series Araki has continued on with his scissors and tape- much like his show Kirishin (Rat Hole Gallery 2014) the photos which make up the work are a coupling of two separate halves of slide-film frames. Viewers are treated to an image comprised of slice from a studio session with a model in Mame fashion, and one of a character from the photographer’s surreal collection of small figures and dolls, often among thickets of his flower-forests.
The exhibition venue is an interesting choice as well. Occupying a street-level space in a stone & brick building from 1929, Morioka Shoten’s Ginza branch is unique in that it is a bookstore which only sells one title at a time- this means that for the duration of this show the only book in stock is Aramame- a beautifully produced full-color book bound in the traditional “orihon” Japanese accordion style. (Those outside of Tokyo are able to order the book from Sha Sha Sha: Aramame)
In regards to Aramame, in contrast in content, the scale shifts between subjects in each half- indeed, the way the photos are spliced together with decidedly visible cellophane tape connecting them- this work, while tied to a fashion house, is very much a Nobuyoshi Araki experience. Indeed, the physical aspect of the way these photographs were created matches well with the idea of fashion itself- through scissors and material new creations can be formed.