A dog in the shadows, its fur unkempt, its mouth slightly open, and its gaze full of mistrust: While garish light illuminates its back, parts of its face disappear in deep black. This photograph from 1971 became an icon, marking a decisive moment in the history of photography. It was taken by Daido Moriyama (b. 1938 in Osaka, Japan), one of the most famous street photographers of our time, who has challenged and expanded the language of photography, presenting a new perspective of the world.
Daido Moriyama became famous for photographs that are grainy, out of focus, and tilted, offering us a radical new vision to talk about the upheaval of society, longing, taboos, and the theater of everyday life. Trained as a graphic designer, Moriyama has photographed life on the streets of Japan since the 1960s. He aims his camera at passersby and urban scenes. In the aftermath of World War II and the destruction caused by the atomic bombs, he found his subject matter in the tension between tradition and modernization, documenting the Western consumer-culture invasion through mass media and advertising. His work is an elegy on a period of deep transformation. With his snapshots, he reacted to the American occupation as well as the contradictory vitality of a society that was metamorphosing from grieving to euphoria.
This retrospective retraces Moriyama’s photography and his conceptual investigations on the media, starting from his works for Japanese magazines, his progressive distrust of photojournalism, his contribution to the Provoke generation, and the radical approach epitomized by his photobook Farewell Photography (1972). In the early 1980s, Moriyama slowly overcame a creative and personal crisis. His subsequent work developed a visual lyricism with which he reflected on his identity and the definitions of photography, memory, and history. Many of these works were produced for Japanese magazines and books, which were the central stage for photography debates in postwar Japan. Well known for his gritty black-and-white images, he also embraced color and digital photography. The exhibition ends with Record magazine, the culmination of his life-long investigations and a publication that Moriyama continues to produce to this day.
DAIDO MORIYAMA: RETROSPECTIVE is one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of his oeuvre ever to be shown. FOTO ARSENAL WIEN is the fifth station of this touring exhibition that has been presented with great acclaim in São Paulo, Berlin, London, and Helsinki. The show was selected by The Guardian newspaper as the best photo show of the year. The exhibition presents more than 200 artworks, 250 publication reproductions, rare books, and audiovisual projections, providing unique access to the Japanese photographer’s work.
This exhibition was organized by the Instituto Moreira Salles, Brazil, in collaboration with the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation, Japan, and the consultancy of Yutaka Kambayashi, Satoshi Machiguchi, and Kazuya Kimura. It was curated by Thyago Nogueira (Instituto Moreira Salles) in cooperation with Marit Lena Herrmann, curator of FOTO ARSENAL WIEN. A comprehensive monograph published by Prestel accompanies the exhibition.
