Anchoring the exhibition is a photograph taken of a stray dog in Japan’s Aomori Prefecture. The distinctively high contrast image is iconic of Moriyama and a symbol of the artist himself- he too is an urban rambler, prowling from alley to alley while capturing his stripped down vision of the streets. Photographs at the core of his oeuvre include the “Japan Photo Theatre” series from 1968. Loosely centred on avant-garde theatre, these seamy portraits of actors and nightclub performers remain some of Moriyama’s best known images. The fish-netted legs shot close-up in the “Tights” series is a sensual exploration of texture and hard abstraction, guiding the eye to dwell on formal elements that might otherwise go unnoticed. While in “Japan Photo Theatre” Moriyama depicts Tokyo’s entertainment district as a manifestation of the city’s desires, the fragmentary images of the legs and tights similarly capture an erotic instinct. Moriyama has been influenced by a diverse range of artists, from Japanese photographers Eikoh Hosoe and Shomei Tomatsu, to the writer Yukio Mishima, Andy Warhol, American photographers William Klein, Weegee, Eugene Atget and Jack Kerouac's On the Road. “Light and Shadow” is a series from the 1980s which shows Moriyama’s sensibility in shooting objects and abstract scenes. Like a photographic diary with shots taken in motion, there is a sense of narrative and the passage of time. Citing Kerouac’s On the Road as one of his greatest influences, his photographs are a record of his wanderings in which the journey is as important as the destination.

Daido Moriyama (b. 1938) was born in Osaka, Japan and moved to Tokyo in 1961, where he continues to live and work. His work has been collected by prominent public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The Centre Pompidou, Paris. Moriyama has had over 100 solo exhibitions worldwide, including major shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, The Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland, The Folkwang, Essen, Germany, The National Museum of Art Osaka and the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo. He was recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Centre of Photography and his work has been the subject of joint retrospective with William Klein at Tate Modern (2012).

-Simon Lee Gallery

Image: © Daido Moriyama
Poster (Nakano)
1990
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
34.3 x 23cm
© Daido Moriyama / Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and Simon Lee Gallery