DAIDO MORIYAMA
Surely one of the most famous contemporary Japanese photographers along with Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama is the author of an abundant and original body of work.
Born in 1938 in Osaka Prefecture, he moved to Tokyo in 1961 and assisted the photographer Eikoh Hosoe. In this bustling capital, he discovered the Shinjuku district, with its narrow, diverse streets where employees and players in Japanese counterculture met. This district became his favorite place to "wander." Wandering the streets on the lookout for shapes and counter-shapes, voraciously photographing a world that was changing too quickly, this member of the highly influential post-war group Provoke often called himself a "stray dog," like one of his most famous photographs, "Stray Dog." With dark, grainy, high-contrast shots, he often focused on seemingly trivial details, revealing their full depth. While the photo book is a medium historically favored by Japanese photographers, Moriyama is particularly prolific: he has to date published more than 150 photographic books since his first work, "Japan, A Photo Theater", released in 1968.
His photographs have been included in the collections of, among others, the Centre Pompidou in Paris (FR), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (USA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (USA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), San Francisco (USA), the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (USA).
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Surely one of the most famous contemporary Japanese photographers with Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama is the author of an abundant and original work.
Born in 1938 in Osaka prefecture, he moved to Tokyo in 1961 and assisted the photographer Eikoh Hosoe. In this booming capital, he discovers the Shinjuku district, with its narrow and diverse streets where employees and actors of the Japanese counterculture meet. This neighborhood becomes his favorite “wandering” place. Wandering the streets on the lookout for shapes and counter-forms, bulimically photographing a world that is changing too quickly, this member of the very influential post-war group Provoke is often called a "stray dog", in the image from one of his most famous photographs, “Stray dog”. With dark, grainy, highly contrasted shots, he often focuses on seemingly innocent details whose depth he reveals. If the photo book is a medium historically favored by Japanese photographers, Moriyama is particularly prolific: to this date he published more than 150 photographic books since his first work, “Japan, A Photo Theater”, released in 1968.
His photographs have been included in the collections of, among others, the Center Pompidou in Paris (FR), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York (USA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (USA), from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), San Francisco (USA), from the Getty Museum, Los Angeles (USA).