Shakyo Rojin Nikki : Uso (SIGNED)

Nobuyoshi Araki
Shakyo Rojin Nikki : Uso (SIGNED)

Photographs: Nobuyoshi Araki

Publisher: Wides Shuppan Co.,Ltd

277 pages

Year: 2014

Comments: Softcover under dust jacket, 18,9 x 25,7cm, b&w photographs. In very good condition other than edge wear. Signed by Nobuyoshi Araki.

“Uso (jap.: "lie") is another photo book within my series, “Shakyo Rojin Nikki" (Old Man Photo Maniac Diaries).
But for this entry, my state of mind is not that of a daily diary, but of an hourly record. I recorded the hours, every new minute, every changing moment. Using an entire day as a unit of measure? Well, that just seems too long to me. So, I have recorded the day of April 1st, 2014.
As one day passes, everything changes. That’s something completely out of human control. In the end, there is nothing else to do but at least photograph the diversity a day has to offer.
In the end, photography has always been the art of selection.”

-Excerpt from Nobuyoshi Araki’s accompanying text

Possibly having changed the date on his camera to April 1 throughout an entire year, Araki not only plays with his audience but lends a certain mysterious, serious depth to his book. Is, as he says, a day too large a unit to think in? Would this book be less or more exciting if everything in it happened in a day?