Bisazza Foundation houses permanent installation of work by Nobuyoshi Araki

The Bisazza Foundation in Milan is now home to the first permanent installation in the world of works by renowned contemporary Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.

Curated by Filippo Maggia, ‘Love-Dream, Love-Nothing’ replicates a private room at the elegant Rouge Bar nightclub in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, where Araki typically holds appointments after his photo shoots.

However, Bisazza Foundation’s version reflects a slightly different image – two private rooms that mirror each other.

Curator Filippo Maggia notes: “With an oval settee and table in the centre, the first room reinterprets the Tokyo original, with posters and bills for Araki shows leaned against the interior walls. The second is designed like a library, in tribute to the artist’s endless production of books, monographs and show catalogues dedicated to Araki – currently more than 500 published around the world in more than 50 years of his artistic career. Also displayed here are small dinosaur models, similar to the ones Araki still uses in styling many of his compositions.

“In addition to photos taken by Araki for Bisazza, the walls of the ‘Love-Dream, Love-Nothing’ room are also hung with photographs purchased by the Foundation and with three very recent works commissioned in early 2019 for the installation: three calligraphies by Araki himself in the traditional Japanese “shodō” technique. The names given by Araki to these calligraphies reflect his poetic sensibilities, as always, centred around his love of the world of women and the boundary between life and death, beauty and decadence, white and black.”

The installation joins Bisazza Foundation’s works by Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Gabriele Basilico, Roland Fischer, Candida Höfer, Julius Shulman, Hiroshi Sugimoto.