Daido Moriyama Journey for Something Reflex Amsterdam
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DAIDO MORIYAMA Erik Kessels Matthias Harder 1966 Roermond, The Netherlands Dr. Matthias Harder has been working as the chief curator at the Helmut Newton Erik Kessels is since 1996 Creative Director Foundation in Berlin since 2004 and has of communications agency KesselsKramer in been teaching at the Free University of Amsterdam. Berlin since 2002. Prior to his current Kessels is a photography collector and has JOURNEY FOR SOMETHING position, he was a guest curator at the published several books of his ‘collected’ Fotomuseum/Münchner Stadtmuseum for images: Missing Links (1999), The Instant Men three years and a curator at the New (2000), in almost every picture (2001-2012) Society of Visual Art in Berlin for four years. and Wonder (2006). Since 2000, he has been an editor of the alternative photography Born in Kiel in 1965, Matthias Harder magazine Useful Photography. For BON studied Art History, Classical Archaeology International, Adformatie, iM (Identity and Philosophy in Kiel and Berlin. Matters) and Vrij Nederland Kessels has He publishes regularly in respected made editorials on a regular basis. He has international magazines and has written taught communication at the Hallo Academy numerous articles for books and exhibition Amsterdam and photography at the Gerrit catalogues. Rietveld Academy and the Willem de Kooning Academy and gave many international lectures. Kessels curated exhibitions such as The European Championship of Graphic Design, Graphic Detour, Loving Your Pictures, Use me Abuse me and From Here On and Album Beauty. In 2010 Kessels was awarded with the Amsterdam Prize of the Arts. DAIDO MORIYAMA JOURNEY FOR SOMETHING REFLEX AMSTERDAM JOURNEY FOR SOMETHING DAIDO MORIYAMA JOURNEY FOR SOMETHING Fast City, Fast Pictures Essay by Matthias Harder His photographs are characterized by their of Shinjuku, appear in Moriyama’s images as coarse grain and the sense of a passing glance a unifying element or even a leitmotif. There at the people in the streets of Japan’s cities: are close-ups of fishnet stocking-covered Daido Moriyama is a master of swiftly legs whose wearer we do not see, or the capturing everyday situations that occur slender legs of young women, who – rendered before his camera, and which through his anonymous by the picture’s close framing – camera become something special. The have caught the photographer’s eye while photographs he takes of his fellow Japanese passing by on escalators or on the street. citizens are spontaneous and intuitive. They Strolling, or rather aimlessly meandering depict drunkards in suits, children in school through Tokyo’s wide streets and narrow uniforms, Kabuki actors, and time and again, alleyways is also a symptom of an insatiable beautiful women. He also selects unusual angles: curiosity and inner restlessness. It is not some pictures are shot at hip level, pointed at surprising that a close-up from 1971 of a dog the legs or the bottoms of women passing by. photographed at eye level – the iconic Stray A documentary film portrait of Moriyama Dog – comes to represent Moriyama’s alter reveals how such shots are created: like Henri ego. One of his many photography books Cartier-Bresson before him, he walks casually would later be titled Memories of a Dog. and unobtrusively through the urban His visual language lives from light and darkness, underbrush, holding a tiny camera in his right under- and incorrect exposures, from smudges hand dangling by his side, ready to shoot. and oblique angles, which make the images Many of his images are realized unconsciously, seem incidental, at times even crude. The indeed uncontrollably. He also takes pictures contrasts and shadows are often hard, the from moving cars, often going unnoticed. In the motifs partially cut off. Daido Moriyama is film, Moriyama seems less like a professional interested in the visual surprises of everyday photographer than a tourist in his own country. life, from a fly on the windowpane looking out During walks through the city he across the spectacular Tokyo vista, to construc- records a situation in a snapshot, often tion sites, storefront windows or torn down without stopping, using the medium like a posters revealing layers of history of past visual diary. During his hours-long walks, the events and films. In his own publications he artist takes a great deal more images than presents all his motifs as full-page images, he ultimately uses; editing – the subsequent arranged equally, alongside one another. selection of the final images that transport the Or his impressions become images whose desired atmo-sphere – is thus an extension context of creation one can hardly fathom, of his creative process. His photographs are such as the circular tiles of “love hotel” stylized and simultaneously authentic. bathroom whose seemingly three-dimensional Japanese society is filled with contradictions; its surface the photographer depicts in its clearly thousand-year-old traditions are as intensively delineated, yet chaotic rhythm. lived as the newest technical novelties – and But there are not only urban stories that he this applies to all generations. Women, during tells with his camera. While he was only the day in the streets and at night in the bars seldom abroad, Daido Moriyama, as we see 4 5 here at the start of the seventies, also dedicated himself to a personally influenced explored Japan’s more rural areas and portrait of Japanese society that frequently historical sites – taking after his role model includes members of marginal groups whose Jack Kerouac. The narrative told by his bleak, existence challenges the cliché of the ultra- occasionally melancholic photography is organized, fully employed market state. He very subjective. In post-war Germany it was continues to translate and reduce the cities’ Otto Steinert who initiated the Subjective attention-grabbing neon into classical black and Photography movement, which was preceded white analogue photography. He still by the first Neorealist films in Italy – both develops his pictures in his dark room at home, are possible inspirational sources for similar using multiple exposures and other effects, alon approaches in Japanese photography. Moriyama g with occasional post-processing to heighten is not alone in his style: in 1961 he moved to the contrast. Moriyama maintains full control Tokyo and in the context of the Vivo group over his images, from shooting the photograph befriended Shomei Tomatsu and Eikoh Hosoe to the final print, and remains true to his own – older colleagues who were nonetheless style – even when the world seems to abound likeminded in spirit and style. It was from with ever-advancing around this time on that Moriyama’s own technical discoveries. Few know that, for images were published in various magazines, several years now, he also uses color film including Asahi Camera and Camera Mainichi. in his camera, as it is only seldom that color The 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo not only prints result. Also, Moriyama works with a gave the world a glimpse into this island fill flash during the day and does not always nation; it also gave the economy an unexpected use the viewfinder of his compact camera. boost. A number of native photographers Although his work process seems playful and benefitted from this, including Daido Moriyama, light, in the sensory overload of Tokyo his own whose fame grew through publications as well senses are fully concentrated. He transforms as being named “Most Promising people into archetypes; at the same time he Photographer” by the Japanese Photo Critics preserves as well as evokes their personality. Organization. Many magazines offered him a In his seismographic social portraits, the silent carte blanche to pick his themes for photo consent of many of his protagonists is obvious series as well as individual pictures, which as they gaze into the camera. Other pictures would often be used for the cover. The now are “stolen,” paparazzi-style. But Moriyama, an legendary magazine PROVOKE, which enjoyed observer who is as restless as he is precise, is only three issues between 1968 and 1970, not interested in celebrities, but in the normal arrived on the Japanese photo scene “like a person on the stage of everyday life, which bomb” according to his colleague Nobuyoshi sometimes gives the impression of a film set. Araki, and in hindsight signaled the start of a Daido Moriyama is a classic. Not only will his new era. In 1969 and 1970 Moriyama achievements be remembered in the history published several images in the magazine’s of (Japanese) photography and influence many second and third issues that included erotic younger photographers; he also has a sure spot motifs from a love hotel. In the mid-seventies, in contemporary photography. The fast and the he founded together with Tomatsu and Araki happenstance is fed by his unrivalled intuition f a photography school in Tokyo, and a good e situation and the moment, and is the hallmark decade later, a photography gallery. Moriyama of this significant as well as went well beyond his own photographic radical, enduringly enigmatic oeuvre. pursuits to engage with the medium and its communication. Matthias Harder, For more than five decades, Moriyama has Helmut Newton Foundation, Berlin 6 7 Drowning in Moriyama Essay by Erik Kessels It’s rare nowadays that a photographer has a photograph and makes them into one image. consistent style of working throughout his entire Many times you see photographers taking pictures career. Daido Moriyama is one of the few who of a subject, which becomes the centre of the image. does. Since the seventies he produced thousands It’s clear that the photographer intended to do this, of photographs all with the same character and as if he or she likes to say: Look here. This often aesthetics. He resisted joining with the changing leaves little room for interpretation.