Google翻訳
"Tokyo Sex Underground" is a collection of works by French photographer and writer Romain Slocombe (1953-). Since the 1980s, Slocombe has had a strong interest in Japanese culture, and has consistently explored the structure of the body, desire, fetishism, and image consumption, traversing multiple expressive fields such as photography, illustration, and novels. He is particularly known for his deep devotion to Japanese subculture and urban culture, and continues to look at Japanese society from his unique perspective through works such as "City of Broken Dolls" and "Japanese Fetish." This book is a collection of works that document SM clubs, fetish bars, cosplay culture, and underground expressive spaces in Tokyo from the late 1990s to around 2000. Against the backdrop of the anonymity and accumulation of desires that Tokyo had after the collapse of the bubble economy, it captures bodily expression as self-presentation and the forms of communities that exist deep within the city. While Nobuyoshi Araki also appears as a subject, and connections to the context of Japanese photographic culture and eroticism can be seen, the book's interest lies not in the provocative subject matter itself, but in the identities and expressive desires of the people who gather there. Despite being an overseas perspective, it avoids falling into mere exoticism, and depicts the unique image space created by the city of Tokyo and the forms of people's desires, making it an interesting read for understanding the cultural scene around the year 2000.
