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About Japanese photographer, Daido MORIYAMA ( b.1938, in Osaka)
Daido MORIYAMA studied design and then photography in Kōbe, Japan. He moved to Tokyo in 1961 and joined the VIVO photography group - with photographers Kikuji KAWADA, Ikkō NARAHARA, Shōmei TOMATSU, Eikō HOSOE, Akira SATO and Akira TANNO - which soon disbanded. After working as an assistant for the photographers Takeji IWAMIYA and Eikoh HOSOE, he went freelance in 1964. He published his work in photo magazines and elsewhere. His first photo book 'Japan, a Theater' was published in 1968 and between 1968 and 1970 he was involved in the photo fanzine 'Provoke'. Today he is one of the most important Japanese photographers of the second half of the 20th century. His work played a major role in the international success of Japanese photography. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in particular, he created an influential and innovative photographic oeuvre. Unusually for the time, especially in Japan, he concentrated on the fringes of society, red-light districts and the street as his subject matter. It is remarkable that he developed a technique of photographing the street without looking through the viewfinder. These images have an immediate and authentic effect, and his grainy, high-contrast style - described as 'are, bure, boke' (= grainy, blurred, out of focus) - has influenced many photographers.
Photo books by Daido MORIYAMA (a selection)
- 'Provoke 1-5' (1968); 'Japanese Theater' (1968, 2019); 'Farewell Photography' (1972, 2006, 2019); 'A Hunter' (1972, 2011, 2019); 'Another Country in New York' (1974, 2013); 'Light and Shadow' (1982, 2009, 2019); 'Memories of a Dog' (1984, 2001, 2001); '71-NY' (2002, 2011), 'The Complete Works' (2003),; 'Hawaii' (2007); 'Tales of Tonho' (2007; 'Record #6-56' (2007-2024); 'Bye Bye Polaroid' (2008); 'Japanese Photobooks from the 1960s and 70s' (by Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian'; 'Magazine Works' (2009); 'The World Through my Eyes' (2010); 'On the Road' (2011); 'Color' (2012); 'Labyrinth' (2012), 'Paris 88/89' (2012); 'Paris Plus' (2013); 'Odasaku' (2016); Record' (2017); 'Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography Since 1945' (2018); 'Akai Kutsu 1 & 2' (2019); 'Boku' (2019); 'Mayfly' (2019); 'How I take photographs' (2019); 'A Diary. Hasselblad Award 2019' (2020); 'Lips! Lips! Lips!' (2020); 'Boku' (2020); 'Plastic Love' (2020); 'Tokyo: ongoing' (2020); 'KURA chan' (2020); 'Kanban' (2020); 'Retrospective' (2023); 'Shashin Jidai 1981-1988' (2023);
Reception
The photographs by Daido MORIYAMA have/had a great influence on many young Japanese photographers and also had a great impact internationally. He has published a large number of photo books and his photographs have been published in many magazines. In 2019, the 110-minute documentary film 'Daidō Moriyama. The Past is always new, the Future is always nostalgic' (directed by Gen Iwama). It shows how two men, a publisher and a graphic artist, accompanied him for over a year during the production of the new edition of 'Japan. A Theater' for over a year.