Daido Moriyama is a major photographer of the 20th century. Born in Osaka in Japan, he continues to work mostly in Tokyo. He studied graphic design before he learned photography with his first mentor Takeji Iwamiya. In 1961 he moved to Tokyo and became the assistant of Eikoh Hosoe and worked also with the writer Yukio Mishima on the series "Ordeal by Roses". It is only in 1964 that he became an independent photographer.
He gained recognition quickly with his first book "Japan a Photo Theatre" (1968) and later "Farewell Photography" (1972), "Hunter" (1972), "Mayfly" (1972, "Another Country in New York" (1974) "Light and Shadow" (1982), "A Journey to Nakaji" (1987), "Lettre à St Lou" (1990)... We will stop there as we cannot list his 200 books!)
In 1968 Daido Moriyama became a member of the Provoke Movement. He describes his work as been "are, bure, boke". He gave birth to a new kind of street photography. His work was shown in 1974 at the MOMA in an exhibition called " New Japanese Photography". Since then we have seen his work all around the world in majors exhibitions and museums. In 2012 he won the ICP Infinity Award.
Daido Moriyama emerged from the Provoke movement of the 1960s, which challenged, primarily through its publications, the rigid artistic formalities of the Japanese photographic scene at that time, he created highly innovative and intensely personal work, often depicting what he saw as the breakdown of traditional values in post-war Japan. *Born in 1938 in Osaka,?Moriyama moved to Tokyo in 1961. He became a fully-fledged freelance photographer in 1964: among his early influences were his contemporary Shomei Tomatsu, as well as the work of William?Klein in New York, Andy Warhol's silkscreened newspaper images, and the writings of Jack Kerouac. His pictures, are characterised by a gritty, high contrast black-and-white aesthetic, or 'are, bure, boke' (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus), concentrate on the little-seen parts of the city and the fragmentary nature of modern realities. This book, the only survey of Moriyama's work currently available in English, includes an introduction by Simon Baker, Curator of Photography at Tate, and two newly translated texts on the artist: 'The Myth of the City' by Koji Taki; and 'Reconsidering "Grainy, Blurry, Out-of-focus"' by Minoru Shimizu which was first published in?Moriyama's seminal photobook Farewell Photography, and translated into?English here for the first time. Produced to coincide with the William Klein + Daido Moriyama show at Tate Modern, this book provides not just an exhibition publication, but an essential monograph on a true benchmark figure of modern photography.
Throughout his career, Daido Moriyama has sought new ways of recasting his images through the use of different printing techniques, installation, or by re-editing and re-formatting them. For this volume, Moriyama has returned to his contact sheets from the past five decades, selecting both classic and previously unpublished images. Included here are reproductions of original contact sheets; sequences of new contact sheets made from recombined negative strips that juxtapose images from the 1950s with those from the past ten years; and selections of individual images, both familiar and newly discovered. Together, they offer a comprehensive assembly of Moriyama's oeuvre, tracing recurring motifs and proposing startling new interpretations of some of his most iconic photographs. In opening up this private process of reexamination to a wider public, Moriyama continues to challenge the viewer, his own practice and the larger mechanisms by which photography makes meaning.
Born in 1938 and brought up for a short while in Osaka, Japan, Daido Moriyama spent much of his childhood on the move, due to his father's profession as a travelling insurance salesman. Moriyama studied graphic design and, in the 1960s, moved to Tokyo to work with the VIVO group of photographers, which included Eikoh Hosoe and Shomei Tomatsu. Accompanied by a surge in Japanese economic growth and mass culture, Moriyama was published in several magazines and journals, earning him the accolade of Most Promising Photographer by the Japan Photography Critics Association. Moriyama was a member of PROVOKE Magazine at the time of international youth movements and unrest in 1968. The magazine, and Moriyama's photography, sought to assert an independence over the classically held notion of photography as purely a visual sign. He was aware that the camera can not offer a complete record and it is in this very partialness that the real excitement and enigma in his work arises. Exploring themes of self-expression, the disfiguration of urban landscapes, eroticism and fading Japanese traditions, Moriyama remarked that one of photography's essential qualities is its amateurism, and another its anonymity. These have numbered among his preoccupations from the beginning and most of Moriyama's images follow a snapshot aesthetic, often taken while running or from a moving car, without the use of a viewfinder. This monograph on Moriyama follows a chronological order, identifying major themes and examining key works; a beautifully produced, affordable introduction to one of the most influential figures in photography today.
A broad monograph devoted to one of the preeminent names in contemporary Japanese photography. Moriyama's photography is provocative, both for the form it takes (Moriyama's photographs may be dirty, blurry, overexposed or scratched) and for its content. The viewer's experience of the photo--whether it captures a place, a person, a situation or an atmosphere--is the central thrust in his work, which vividly and directly conveys the artist's emotions. The approximately 200 black-and-white images sketch out an original perspective on Japanese society, especially during the period from the 1950s to the '70s. During this time, he produced a collection of photographs -- Nippon gekijo shashincho -- which showed darker sides of urban life and relatively unknown parts of cities. In them, he attempted to show what was being left behind during the technological advances and increased industrialization in much of Japanese society. His work was often stark and contrasting within itself--one image could convey an array of senses; all without using color. His work was jarring, yet symbiotic to his own fervent lifestyle. In addition, the artist has included a number of photos shot in the past decade to complete this volume.
Jacopo Maria Della Valle is an Italian travel photographer who fell in love with photography at young age thanks to the influence of his father. Since then he has travelled to Europe, the USA, Cuba, Morocco and all over Asia. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 12 B&W with his project Bull Jumping. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Giedo van der Zwan is a street photographer, writer and publisher from the Netherlands. He started working on a long-term project 'Pier to Pier' in 2017 and published his book in June 2018. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 8 Street. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Eli Klein Gallery has an international reputation as one of the foremost galleries specializing in contemporary Chinese art and continues to advance the careers of its represented artists and hundreds of other Chinese artists with whom it has collaborated. The Gallery has been instrumental in the loan of artworks by Chinese artists to over 100 museum exhibitions throughout the world. It has published 40 books/catalogues and organized more than 75 exhibitions of Chinese contemporary art at our prestigious venues in New York City.
Cayetano González is a talented Spanish photographer and cinematographer who found his calling when his grandfather lend him his Leica. Since then he has directed commercials and shot several covers of major magazines. His work is influenced by the painters he admires like Sorolla, Velázquez, Rembrandt and Delacroix.
Mauro De Bettio is an Italian photographer who lives in Spain. His pictures are a visual story able to highlight unseen or ignored realities. A vital tool that can help bring about social changes. He is the winner of AAP Magazine 11 Travels. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Stéphane Lavoué, is a French portrait photographer born in Mulhouse in 1976. He lives and works between Brittany and Paris. He is the winner of the Niépce Prize 2018. We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Harvey Stein is a professional photographer, teacher, lecturer, author and curator based in New York City. He currently teaches at the International Center of Photography. Stein is a frequent lecturer on photography both in the United States and abroad. He was the Director of Photography at Umbrella Arts Gallery, located in the East Village of Manhattan from 2009 until 2019 when it lost its lease and closed. Stein's photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe, 86 one-person and over 165 group shows to date and has published eight books. We asked him a few questions about his life and work
Lisa Tichané is an advertising photographer whose work is entirely focused on babies and young kids. Based in France but travelling internationally for her clients, she is well known for her unique ability to connect with her tiny models and get irresistible images even from the most unpredictable, unwilling subjects. We asked her a dew questions about her life and work:
Monica Denevan is the Photographer of the Year, winner of All About Photo Awards 2020 - The Mind's Eye. My co-jurors Elizabeth Avedon, Laurent Baheux, Alex Cammarano, Julia Dean, Ann Jastrab, Juli Lowe and myself were impressed by her work Across the River, Burma that won first place out of thousands of submissions. She also won 1st place for AAP Magazine 4: Shapes. Her ongoing series, "Songs of the River: Portraits from Burma," began in 2000. Since then, she has returned to many of the same small villages in Burma/Myanmar, making intimate photographs of fishermen and their families in the spare and graphic setting of the Irrawaddy River. She travels with a medium format film camera, one lens, and bags of film, working with natural light and making composed images. Once home, she makes photographic prints in her traditional darkroom.
Do you like cookies? 🍪 We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, to show you personalized content and to analyze our website traffic. Learn more
