In a real coup, Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City will open an exhibit of Kohei Yoshiyuki's famous “park series” photographs. It has been over thirty years since the cult photographer has been exhibited and the opening on September 6 will represent his first show in the United States.

The reclusive photographer’s work from the 1970s will be one of the hottest exhibitions of the Fall gallery season. The show continues until October 20, and I strongly urge you to visit what might be once in a life time opportunity to view Yoshiyuki's astounding black and white - almost silver - collection in person.

The photographer was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1946. This post-bomb generation seems to seek life on a larger scale after living amidst the ruins, the radiation illnesses and the horror of post-war Hiroshima. To this unique baby boomer group, life was fleeting and uncertain. Yoshiyuki’s focus was often on the erotic playing fields of local parks, where one could find immediate, deep passion without the intimacy that could only bring more loss.

When his first works, taken at night using infrared film, were published in Weekly Shincho, he became almost an overnight sensation. In 1979, after a showing in Tokyo's Komai Gallery, he became haunted by his own work and destroyed many of the images he had taken in this powerful series of erotic underground photographs. For years after, he was a “family photographer,” and his work could not have been further from his sexually charged photographs in the early 70s.

The intimacy of couples in a public place, surrounded by voyeurs and total strangers eager to somehow be a part, was so erotic. The photographs weren’t sexually explicit, but uniquely captured the sexual passion of an intimate moment. Inherit in his work was a powerful loneliness amidst the crowd. There were people eager to seek a connection in public place that was devoid of common rules of engagement. Some of his subjects seemed tender, others seemed frantic to join in and many just seemed lonely and desperate for touch.

Yossi Milo Gallery is located at 525 West 25th Street in New York City. The gallery is also publishing its first book around this show. Most of all, Yossi Milo Gallery deserves our thanks for bringing to life this remarkable talent whose works have been too long hidden.