Nobuyoshi Araki is Japan's best-known photographer and its most controversial cultural export. Documenting Tokyo; he captures its obscene energy and inhuman emptiness in the sex clubs and entertainment district, crowded streets, buildings and skies. His work is infused with an intense sexuality.

Renowned for clashing with the authorities, in 1988 police ordered the removal from sale the magazine Shashin Jidai, which featured Araki's photographs; obscenity charges were levelled against the artist during a 1992 exhibition and 1993 saw the arrest of a gallery curator who dared to display Araki's graphic nudes. One gets the sense that Araki is a rebel bucking the system.

Araki has been working as a photographer since the 1960s and has published over 200 books and exhibited extensively worldwide, including Tokyo, London, and Paris.