Star.com: Japanese peep show in The Park
Photographs are sexy even when they're not about sex. They're extra sexy when they're particularly voyeuristic offering the promise of sex. So how hot does it get when things are pushed even further and we're able to watch the voyeurs as they go about watching sex? The answer is "very." As proof, there's "The Park," an extraordinary show by veteran Japanese photographer Kohei Yoshiyuki...The circumstances leading to this suite of small black and white diffuse images are remarkably uncomplicated considering the complex issues – and many thrills – they lead to. Yoshiyuki, a commercial photographer by trade, became a professional "Peeping Tom" accidentally after he and a photographer friend came across a couple having sex in Tokyo's Shinjuku Park. During the '70s, Yoshiyuki continued to cruise three of the city's main parks. He shot heterosexual couplings in Shinjuku and Yoyogi parks between '71 and '73 and balletic gay group gropes in Aoyama Park in '79...In one image – all are labelled Untitled – one voyeur lifts a woman's skirt while she's making love to another man. In another, a group of peepers surround a couple making love on a bench. In her attempt not to have to look them in their eyes – and our eyes, had she known – the woman stares off into space. The flash of the photographer's camera is caught in two pinprick points of light in her eyes...more...
Reviews of the show (PDF)
