Images of Japan to the world

JOSUE GORDON

MAMYTOV ULUKMAN

PEDRO URIGUEN

POSTWAR CINEMA

Changes after WW2

Family Structure

Changes in the custom

POSTWAR PHOTOGRAPHY

From Japan to the world and back again

The photographic work of Moriyama Daido （森山大道 ):

A negotiation between Japanese culture and the west.

1938 年 10 月 10 日 is born

Pacific WarAmerican OccupationDemonstrations of 68

Astray Dog, 1971

Moriyama’s Formal and Thematic choices

Yokosuka (From Another country), 1965

From the Book Yokosuka, 1965

From the Book “1965”

Formal Construction: Are- Bure- Bokeh

From the Book “1965”

William Klein: The First Dialogue

William Klein, Gun 1, 1955

Daido Moriyama, CHILDREN WHO ARE TOO GROWNUP FROM "THE ISLAND WITH 100 MILLION PEOPLE 48" (THREE BOYS)1968

William Klein Daido Moriyama

Contrary to the westerners, which make an effort to eliminate, radically, everything that is dirty, people from extreme-east keep it as a valuable thing, to transform it into an element of beauty. P.31

Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise to the Shadow, Ciruela Publishing, Spain, October, 32nd edition, 2014.

Japanese aesthetics explain why it is that Klein’s formal choices find in Moriyama a secure place to nest and develop.

I think that that which is beautiful, it’s not a substance in itself, but merely a drawing made out of shadows, a game of chiaroscuros produced by the juxtaposition of different substances[…]Beauty will lose its existence if shadows are suppressed. P.69

Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise to the Shadow, Ciruela Publishing, Spain, October, 32nd edition, 2014.

GIRL IN ISHIKARI-CHO FROM "SEARCHING JOURNEYS 9"1971

 Our ancestors, in the same way they regarded the lacquered objects with gold dust, or with nacre, they considered the woman a being inseparable of the darkness, and they tried to sink her as much as possible in the gloom. This way the long sleeves and those long dresses that covered anything except the head and the neck, acquired a startling effect. P.70

Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise to the Shadow, Ciruela Publishing, Spain, October, 32nd edition, 2014.

Really, you can say that you need darkness, as an indispensable requirement to be able to appreciate the beauty of a lacquer[…] A chest, a tray, a stand, a shelf, all of them decorated with lacquer with grinded gold, they might look too flashy, harsh, even vulgar; but let us make an experiment, let us allow that he space that surrounds them become completely dark, and then let us exchange solar o electrical light with only one light source, a candle, or an oil lamp, and we will immediately that those flashy objects acquire depth, density and become sober. P.35 Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise to the Shadow, Ciruela

Publishing, Spain, October, 32nd edition, 2014.

“Provoke No. 2” by Daido Moriyama, 1969 

Shadow as a dynamic phenomenon.

Shadow is a phenomenon of opposition. It emerges from a conflict with the light, with visibility.

Modern western thinking develops from a clear desire of knowledge, logic, control and understanding. The light is linked to this concepts.

Photography is a mechanical development that culminates the perfection of the Alberti Perspective. Photography is about visibility, truth and reality, at least from the will of truth that stemmed its creation and development. Identity photos, psychological “research”, etc.

Following this logic, blurriness in an image, out of focus, or marked grain (the remainder that the image is that, and not reality) can be considered different types of shadows, elements that hinder a clear rendering.

 

Moriyama not only idolizes Warhol (“I think I was so in awe of him andadored him so, I was torn, I wanted to hold onto my adoration, I was afraid to confrontthe real man: Andy Warhol.”) but it also understands and comments on him.

Daido Moriyama, “Moriyama Interview, December 22, 2001 Shinjuku, Tokyo,” translated by LindaHoaglund, in ’71-NY (New York: PPP Editions, 2002), unpaginated.

Andy WarholCampbell's Soup Can1962Oil on canvas50.8 x 40.6 cm

The Warholian Influence: Second dialogue

129 die in jet! 1963  

From the Series Death and disaster1963  

From the series Accident, 1969  

From the series Accident, 1969  

Lips, Tokyo, 1989 

Jack Kerouac: the third dialogue

On the Road (Hunter), 1969

From, Magazine work 1965-1970,

TOKYO RINGWAY, ROUTE 16 - "ON THE ROAD“,1969

Daido Moriyama and his three key negotiations with the west.

Moriyama’s Photographs present, from 1965 to1969 three key points of cultural crossing between United States and Japan.

This nodes present a negotiation in which the alien elements although highly regarded are incorporated into the body of production of the artist under Japanese terms.

1) Are, Bure, Bokeh- formal dimension, influenced by William Klein, but heavily rooted in Japanese traditional Aesthetics, Tanizaki Junichiro and his Praise to the Shadow.

2) Pop-art theory and practice. Heavy influence and reverence towards Andy Warhol, and yet an articulation of his artistic strategies under Moriyama’s terms and aesthetics.

3) On the Road, Hunter. A Japanese version of the American Beat road philosophy and Jack Kerouac homonymous “On the Road”. While the American beat generation pursues illumination by rupture and dislocation Moriyama seems to address the redefinition of geographical and cultural limits.

Sources of Information

Bibliography

-Daido Moriyama, “Moriyama Interview, December 22, 2001 Shinjuku, Tokyo,” translated by LindaHoaglund, in ’71-NY (New York: PPP Editions, 2002), unpaginated.

-Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise to the Shadow, Ciruela Publishing, Spain, October, 32nd edition, 2014.

-Yoshiaki Kai, Sunappu: A Genre of Japanese Photography, Umi Dissertation Publishing, 1930-1980, New York, 2012.

Other Sources

OFFICE DAIDO, http://www.moriyamadaido.com/english/#/biography/, consulted on 7/17/15, no date for latest maintenance.