Tokyo Love

Tokyo Love by Nan Goldin and Nobuyoshi Araki

‘Nan has lost so many of her best friends through AIDS. I wanted her to forget these experiences along with all the other sorrows of life and to take pictures in Tokyo. “I will help you get over the death of your wife,” she said to me at the very beginning. That was the love between Nan and me. // In short, we wanted to stand on happier shores. You can make a name for yourself by dealing with sorrow and pain - in life, in photography, in literature. But we wanted to throw this suffering overboard and head for life’s joys. Tokyo Love was a good opportunity to devote ourselves to joy.’ Araki

‘I came back to Tokyo in the Spring of 1994 to photograph the new Japanese youth and managed to track down my own tribe. I met kids who were so like my own friends and I were in our late teens. I met young women 20 years old who are tougher than me. I found a household of kids who are living by the same beliefs that I did as a teenager, and who have transcended any definitions of hetero or homosexual. I was deeply touched, I fell in love with face after face. // What started as a documentary project emerged as a journey back into my own adolescence, a rebirth of innocence, a time before my community was plagued by AIDS and decimated by drug addictions return to the garden.’ Goldin

First edition, softcover, good condition. 208 pages. 1994.