Daido Moriyama HokkaidoArt Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘Daido Moriyama: Encounters’ at the Print Sales Gallery at The Photographers’ Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 7th February – 13th April, 2025

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Ebina, Kanagawa
1969
From A Hunter
Gelatin silver print
23 x 35″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

I have so many exhibitions lined up in the next few weeks that there will be some mid-week postings!

It is a great privilege and pleasure to be able to publish these photographs by master Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938), many of which were unknown to me. Thank you to The Photographers’ Gallery for allowing me to do so…

Moriyama’s photographic style is unmistakable. “Renowned for his bold are, bure, boke aesthetic – grainy, blurry and out-of-focus images that defy photographic convention”, Moriyama’s contrasty, slightly high key, sometimes flash photographs of unusual perspectives and intimate glances capture “something that’s mysterious and unknown in everyday life.”

This buying exhibition highlights the quieter, more reflective moments of Moriyama’s work. I know only too well what sensitivity and envisioning it takes to picture these intimacies of everyday life … almost inconsequential until they are bought into the photographer’s consciousness in a resolved manner (previsualisation), then through negative and print and eye into the consciousness of the viewer.

The images are memorable and unforgettable. Buy one!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to The Photographers’ Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“It may look like I’m just pointing the camera at what’s in front of me. But I’m trying to photograph what people see, but don’t notice – something that’s mysterious and unknown in everyday life.”

Daido Moriyama

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled
1968
From Japan: A Photo Theater
Gelatin silver print
14 x 17″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Camera Mainichi, Hiroshima
1974
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Hokkaido
1978
Gelatin silver print
10 x 12″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Hokkaido
1978
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Cherry Blossom, Zushi, Kanagawa
1982
Gelatin silver print
18 x 22″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
How to Make Beautiful Photos
1987
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1938, Daido Moriyama’s celebrated career has been shaped by constant reinvention and experimentation. Over six decades, he has become renowned for his bold are, bure, boke aesthetic – grainy, blurry and out-of-focus images that defy photographic convention. A pivotal figure in the radical Provoke movement of the late 1960s, Moriyama redefined photography, unbound by traditional constraints, capturing fragments of reality that “cannot be expressed in language as it is.”

Moriyama is best known for recording the freneticism and anonymity of life in the city, Encounters reveals his lesser-explored ability to show beauty and stillness in the everyday. Softly lit city streets, rendered in grainy textures, evoke a surreal and poetic visual language that embraces imperfection. Fleeting moments of calm and intimacy are paired with whimsical glimpses of animals and delicate vignettes of nature – blossoms, snowflakes and quiet, weathered corners of urban sprawl – revealing an unexpected tenderness amongst his raw and gritty aesthetic.

In recent years, Moriyama has described his work as a visual diary, shooting pictures daily to document the ever-changing landscape of urban life. His enduring question- “What is photography?”-remains an open one which continues to probe the medium’s position between the objective and the subjective, the illusory and the real.

Text from The Photographers’ Gallery website

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Japan Photo Theater
1968
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Asahi Journal
1969
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
A Hunter
1972
Gelatin silver print
11 x 14″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Shinjuku
2002
Gelatin silver print
10 x 12″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

The Print Sales Gallery at The Photographers’ Gallery will be showing a gentler side of the iconic Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama’s work this Spring. Following 2023’s major retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery, which offered an in-depth exploration into his groundbreaking career, Daido Moriyama: Encounters takes a more intimate approach. Focusing on a smaller selection of photographs, this selling exhibition highlights the quieter, more reflective moments of Moriyama’s work. “It may look like I’m just pointing the camera at what’s in front of me. But I’m trying to photograph what people see, but don’t notice – something that’s mysterious and unknown in everyday life.”

Moriyama is best known for recording the freneticism and anonymity of life in the city, Encounters reveals his lesser-explored ability to show beauty and stillness in the everyday. Softly lit city streets rendered in grainy texture evoke a surreal and poetic visual language that embraces imperfection. Fleeting moments of calm and intimacy paired with whimsical glimpses of animals and delicate vignettes of nature – blossoms, snowflakes and quiet, weathered corners of urban sprawl – reveal an unexpected tenderness amongst his usual raw and gritty aesthetic.

This selling exhibition marks the Print Sales Gallery’s new representation of Daido Moriyama. All prints on show and from Moriyama’s archive are available to buy, in a range of sizes. Prices start at £1,200 + VAT. All profits from Print Sales support The Photographers’ Gallery’s public programme.

Print Sales at The Photographers’ Gallery

Print Sales at The Photographers’ Gallery is a dedicated space for discovering and buying fine-art photographic prints, with all proceeds supporting The Photographers’ Gallery public programme. Representing a roster of international photographers – from established names to emerging talent – a curated series of selling exhibitions each year brings you the best of both sought-after classics and brand-new contemporary work.

Press release from The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from Record No. 14
2010
Gelatin silver print
18 x 22″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from Record No. 18
2011
Gelatin silver print
14 x 17″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from Record No. 22
2012
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Untitled' 2017

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from K
2017
Gelatin silver print
14 x 17″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from K
2017
Gelatin silver print
10 x 12″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from Record No. 35
2017
Gelatin silver print
10 x 12″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Untitled, from Ango
2017
Gelatin silver print
23 x 35″
Courtesy of the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and The Photographers’ Gallery

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16-18 Ramillies Street
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W1F 7LW

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Exhibition: ‘Hawaii’ by Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine, New York

Exhibition dates: 13th February – 13th March, 2010

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Nikko Toshogu
1977
Gelatin silver print

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Quilt' 1977 from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Hawaii' by Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine, New York, February - March, 2010

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Quilt
1977
Gelatin silver print

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938) 'Hokkaido' 1978 from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Hawaii' by Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine, New York, February - March, 2010

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Hokkaido
1978
Gelatin silver print

Daido Moriyama (Japanese, b. 1938)
Tono
1974
Gelatin silver print

Luhring Augustine is pleased to present its first exhibition featuring the work of Daido Moriyama, one of Japan’s leading figures in photography. Witness to the spectacular changes that transformed postwar Japan, his photographs express a fascination with the cultural contradictions of age-old traditions that persist within modern society. Providing a harsh, crude vision of city life and the chaos of everyday existence, strange worlds, and unusual characters, his work occupies the space between the objective and the subjective, the illusory and the real.

Moriyama takes pictures with a small hand-held camera that enables him to shoot freely while walking or running or through the windows of moving cars. Taken from vertiginous angles or overwhelmed by closeups, his blurred images are charged with a palpable and frenetic energy that reveal a unique proximity to his subject matter. Snapshots of stray dogs, posters, mannequins in shop windows, and shadows cast into alleys present the beauty and sometimes-terrifying reality of a marginalised landscape. His anonymous and detached approach enables him to capture the “visible present” made up of accidental and uncanny discoveries as he experiences them.

Moriyama emerged as a photographer in the 1960’s at the tail end of the VIVO collective, a revolutionary and highly influential group of Japanese artists who reexamined the conventions of photography during the tumultuous postwar period. William Klein’s loose, Beat style images of New York City in the 1960s also served as a major turning point for Moriyama, who found inspiration in Klein’s free-form photographic style. Taken by these innovative approaches at home and abroad, Moriyama ultimately went on to forge his own radical style.

Hawaii, Moriyama’s most recent body of work, was produced over a period of three years and presents his distinct perspective on the daily lives of the people living on the islands of Hawaii and Oahu. Returning to the island five times before feeling prepared to shoot these surroundings, Moriyama’s overall approach is purposeful and considered despite his loose and informal style. The series was recently exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and published in a volume by the institution.

Daido Moriyama was born in Osaka in 1938. He has had museum shows around the world including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. His work is part of many major public collections such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Getty in Los Angeles.

Press release from the Luhring Augustine website [Online] Cited 24/02/2010 no longer available online

Installation view of the exhibition 'Hawaii' by Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine, New York, February - March, 2010

Installation views of the exhibition Hawaii by Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine, New York, February – March, 2010

A total of 52 black and white photographs, hung in the entry, main gallery, and one of the back rooms. 29 of the images are from the recent Hawaii series, taken / printed between 2007 and 2010…

What if Sander had taken portraits in India or China? (Another recent example of this phenomenon would be Eggleston’s images of Paris, here.) The effect is somewhat like musicians making covers, taking someone else’s songs and making them their own; sometimes the mashup creates something wholly original and unexpected, and sometimes the combination doesn’t quite work.

This exhibit extends this line of thinking, with the Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama making pictures of Hawaii, using a group of the artist’s vintage images of Japan as a counterweight for comparison. The older works provide a reminder of Moriyama’s powerful visual vocabulary: dark shadowy images, with skewed off-kilter angles, harsh contrasts, and a rawness that often mixes the gloomy and the menacing. His best images uncover the dark underbelly of the streets, capturing the cultural nuances of Japan in gritty, grainy blackness.

The island life of Hawaii, with its shakas and mellow aloha spirit, presents a surprising challenge for Moriyama: where can a visitor find the brooding or sinister in this paradise? Moriyama does his best to apply his trademark darkness to palm trees and ferns, beaches and hotels, jungles and clouded hills, tourist shops and conch shells, but the overall effect lacks the malignant edginess that haunts his images of Tokyo; he has found some unexpected surface oddities, but the subjects feel a bit too obvious and superficial. Visually, the big prints (roughly 3 by 5 feet) and their shadowy palette make for a jarring view of the easy going, sunny destination, but the subject matter just doesn’t lend itself all that well to deep psychological probing. The real culture of Hawaii is hidden somewhere else, far from the welcoming hula girls, tiki fabrics, and flowers offered to visitors.

Loring Knoblauch. “Daido Moriyama, Hawaii @Luhring Augustine,” on the Collector Daily website, March 4, 2010 [Online] Cited 28/04/2025