Motivated by Robert Capa
Tokyo: np, 1988. Silver gelatin print. 10 x 12 in., framed to 15 x 19 in. Signed by artist on verso, with window on frame to view signature. Item #4033
Signed vintage print by the experimental Japanese photographer known for documenting the underbelly of post-war urban life - an ode to the renowned photojournalist Robert Capa.
Daidō Moriyama (b. 1938) is a Japanese photographer known for documenting the spaces left behind by industrial progress, the loosening of traditional mores, and the rapid modernization of post-war Japan, influenced by the art and literature of Japanese experimentalists.
In a process he maintains today, Moriyama shot with a small hand-held automatic camera, rarely with attention to the viewfinder, firing his shutter as if by machine gun. In his depictions of city life, Moriyama documents cultural change and chaotic urban experience, typically in grainy, black-and-white, high-contrast images, which he prints himself. His photos reject traditional compositional values, and had an undeniable influence on the trajectory of Japanese street photography.
This photograph was featured in the books Daido Moriyama: The Complete Works (Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2003), and Daido Moriyama: The 80s Vintage Prints (Kasher/Kugelberg, 2008). Printed in 1990, the image captures a fragment of a store window, the grotesque masks and toy gun highlighted by the framing, perhaps suggestive of the violence implicit in contemporary society.
This photograph was featured in the book Daido Moriyama: The Complete Works (Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2003). Printed in 1988, this image pays homage to the influential photojournalist Robert Capa, best known for his work alongside Gerda Taro during the Spanish Civil War.
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