Daido Moriyama: The World Through My Eyes

A broad monograph devoted to one of the preeminent names in contemporary Japanese photography. Moriyama's photography is provocative, both for the form it takes (Moriyama's photographs may be dirty, blurry, overexposed or scratched) and for its content. The viewer's experience of the photo--whether it captures a place, a person, a situation or an atmosphere--is the central thrust in his work, which vividly and directly conveys the artist's emotions. The approximately 200 black-and-white images sketch out an original perspective on Japanese society, especially during the period from the 1950s to the '70s. During this time, he produced a collection of photographs -- Nippon gekijo shashincho -- which showed darker sides of urban life and relatively unknown parts of cities. In them, he attempted to show what was being left behind during the technological advances and increased industrialization in much of Japanese society. His work was often stark and contrasting within itself--one image could convey an array of senses; all without using color. His work was jarring, yet symbiotic to his own fervent lifestyle. In addition, the artist has included a number of photos shot in the past decade to complete this volume.

Daido Moriyama studied photography under Takeji Iwamiya before moving to Tokyo in 1961 to work as an assistant to Eikoh Hosoe. Among the most famous of Moriyama's works is the 1971 shot of a stray dog (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). Like many of his other works it features everyday objects or landscapes shot from unfamiliar angles, giving them a stark and unusual perspective. Among the artists that influenced Moriyama are Andy Warhol, William Klein and the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. Daido Moriyama's work is permanently on exhibition at Tepper Takayama Fine Arts, Boston. Filippo Maggia teaches History of Contemporary Photography and Design at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin.