NOBUYOSHI ARAKI, 秋桜子 / CosMos Co, Shogakukan, 1998

Published by Shogakukan, Tokyo, on 20 October 1998. Japanese language. Design and composition by Shin Akiyama (秋山伸). ISBN 978-4-09-681072-9.

An eight-year photographic portrait project begun after Araki encountered the future sitter at a 1991 talk in Sapporo, where she was holding a copy of his Sentimental Journey / Winter Journey — the book documenting his relationship with his wife Yoko and her death the previous year. Araki approached and photographed her. During a later trip, an image of her holding cosmos flowers prompted the name Cosmosco / 秋桜子, derived from the Japanese name for the cosmos flower. The photographic relationship continued until 1998.

The premise places CosMos Co unusually close to Araki's recurring idea of photography as biography produced through encounter. A reader of one Araki publication becomes the subject of the next: book → reader → sitter → recurring image → another book.

Published during an especially prolific period in Araki's practice, CosMos Co differs from the city books and diary-like sequences of the late 1990s by concentrating on one person across almost eight years.

Eye-Line Repair Copy

This copy retains the original yellow obi and has undergone a conspicuous later repair to the dust jacket. Transparent tape runs horizontally across the upper front panel, most conspicuously directly across the sitter's eye line. The repair is unattributed and retained as found. The publisher supplied the portrait; Araki supplied the handwriting; handling supplied the damage; an unknown owner supplied the repair. The image accumulated another layer after publication.

The designation Eye-Line Repair Copy does not imply that the repair is an artwork or an intentional artistic intervention. It identifies a copy-specific state that distinguishes this example from another copy of the same edition.

The rear jacket reverses the intimacy of the front: Cosmosco stands outdoors, surrounded by vegetation, photographed at greater distance. Front: face / proximity / constructed portrait. Back: body / landscape / distance.

The title itself carries a similar doubling. 秋桜 is the Japanese word for the cosmos flower; 子 transforms it into a personal name. An image generates a name. The name generates a book.

Rear jacket with light surface wear.