The Love Hotel exhibition, the result of the second collaboration between Galerie du Jour agnès b. and François Prost, brings together a fascinating collection of photographs of Japanese Love Hotel facades, taken in 2023 during a road trip from Tokyo to the island of Shikoku. This project offers a unique insight into a Japan that is both little-known and evocative.
Here, the photographer paints a unique, vernacular portrait of the country, exploring the roadsides where the ordinary and the unusual mingle. Between aging signs, colorful facades, and buildings with whimsical architecture, these iconic locations reveal a lesser-documented side of Japanese culture.
Underlying this, Love Hotel explores social and intimate dynamics in Japan. These establishments, initially designed to offer couples a space of discretion and intimacy, reflect a lifestyle where lovemaking sometimes struggles to find its place in the domestic sphere, often constrained by a lack of space or family proximity. Thus, Love Hotels are part of a complex social and cultural history, at the intersection of taboos, modernity, and human needs. Today, Love Hotels continue to evolve to adapt to changing customs and expectations.
François Prost’s photographs take us through diverse landscapes, from the sprawling urbanization of Japan’s great megalopolises to the agricultural countryside, where Love Hotels blend into unexpected environments. These places become silent witnesses to the evolution of human relationships, the local economy, and the aesthetics specific to each region of Japan.
This project is a continuation of François Prost’s previous work, which focused on festive architecture and social spaces around the world: After Party (2011-2023, France), Gentlemen’s Club (2019, United States), Discoteca (2020, Spain), and Club Ivoire (2023, Ivory Coast). Here again, the photographer explores these spaces where the intimate and the collective meet, where architecture becomes the mirror of cultural and social practices.
François Prost : Love Hotel
March 20 – May 18, 2025
Galerie du Jour agnès b.
Place Jean-Michel Basquiat
75013 Paris
https://la-fab.com/
