Hachette Book Group

Only in Japan will you find an institution like the love hotel. Hotels where couples can rent heavily decorated theme rooms by the hour for amorous liaisons, love hotels cater to diverse tastes through elaborate decor ranging from subway-car eroticism to space-age bondage. Fascinating in themselves for what they contain, these rooms also present a window into an aspect of Japanese society virtually unheard of in the West. Photographer misty Keasler has created as astonishing body of work depicting these rooms and referring obliquely to the myriad speculations the inevitably provoke.

In Seventy vibrantly colorful photographs, Keasler presents a revealing document of sex and romance, public and private space in Japan. For all their vivid intensity, her images remain essentially reserved, the rooms devoid of people but rife with implication. Through Keasler's lens, the hotels' furnishings- which range from the kitschy and the whimsical to the downright eerie- become emblematic not only not only of the personal predilections they are designed to accommodate, but of the cultural mores that led to their creation.

A forward by the best-selling Japanese author Natsuo Kirino, and essay by the photo curator Rod Slemmons, and passages drawn directly from the love hotel guest books all lend context to these haunting room portraits, creating a collection layered with meaning.

$40.00