He’s been called a genius and a poet, but also a misogynist, a pornographer, a monster—but Nobuyoshi Araki’s work transcends simple moralistic classifications. He has said of his work: “There is no conclusion. It’s completely open. It doesn’t go anywhere.” One of the greatest Japanese photographers of our time, Araki’s oeuvre is marked by an unmistakable mastery of composition, color, and tone.

Meaning “the beauty of tight binding,” Kinbaku-bi, the traditional Japanese art of erotic bondage has long fascinated the photographer, becoming one of his most important subjects. Araki plays with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire and with the slippage between serene image and shock. Whether literally or figuratively, his models are certainly immobilized, but in the most tantalizing ways—girls lay bound but defiant, suspended from the ceiling, in traditional dress or nude, face-on, sometimes with a flower subtly positioned between their legs.

Araki picks his all-time favorite images of bondage. The result is a testament to his ability to tantalizing balance sexual vulnerability and seduction like no other.

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