Yasuhiro Yoshioka The garden of Sodom

Yasuhiro YOSHIOKA "Sodomu no rakuen"-"The Garden of Sodom" 1971 Photo Book Yasuhiro YOSHIOKA, photographer. "Sodomu no rakuen" - "The Garden of Sodom" or "Sodom's Paradise." Japan: Haga Shoten, 1971, First Edition, PB, dj, 26 cm x 18 cm, 178 pp, 114 b/w & color images. "In The Garden of Sodom, Yoshioka pushes the process of demolishing the concept of harmony to the extreme. Here nude women are shown tied up, assaulted, entangled in tortuous and confused embraces with men and other women of all ages. These women display a varying - but always indecipherable - range of emotions; none appears, not surprisingly, in a morally positive light. The feeling one has when leafing through the book is of seeing Japanese society presented as a new Sodom. The photographer seems to have taken some pleasure in being an artist disapproved of by the establishment. As the film director Oshima said, in the eyes of society, making art had become a criminal act." --Bertolotti, Books of Nudes, p172-3 The late 1960's and early 1970's were a fertile time for Yoshioka's artistry, publishing 3 legendary photobooks: Yoshioka Yasuhiro sakuhinshu (1963), Jyuai (1971) and The Garden of Sodom (1971). In addition to his important photography contributions, Yoshioka was the cinematographer for a number of films, including seven between 1967 and 1972