The Photographers Gallery in London is hosting the first UK retrospective on seminal Japanese photographer, Daido Moriyama. For over 60 years, Moriyama has documented the streets of his home country through a rapid and unfiltered lens, his go-to Ricoh GR series to be exact, resulting in grainy images that distill reality to gritty black-and-white images that question the very nature of photography in the process.
Eponymously titled Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective, the show features over 200 images and installations from different periods across his career, including early work in magazines and book publishing, his interests in the American occupation and photorealism, as well as Moriyama’s self-reflexive photographs from the 1980s and 1990s. Whereas some photographers fetishize the craft, Moriyama has always utilized some of the most accessible cameras and film, with an aim to democratizing the industry, while investigating the culture of celebrity, sensationalism, corruption and other pertinent issues in Japanese society.
“Forget everything you’ve learned on the subject of photography for the moment, and just shoot,” Moriyama advises. “Take photographs – of anything and everything, whatever catches your eye. Don’t pause to think.”
The exhibition opened earlier this month and will be on view until February 11, 2024.
In case you missed it, take an inside look at Hypeart’s Love Letters to LA charity exhibition.
The Photographers Gallery
16-18 Ramillies St
London W1F 7LW
