Artist
Daido MORIYAMA
森山大道
Born 1938 in Osaka. After working as an assistant for photographers Takeji Iwamiya and Eikoh Hosoe, he went independent in 1964. He has been publishing his works in photography magazines among others, and received a New Artist Award from the Japan Photo Critics Association for Japan: A Photo Theater in 1967. Between 1968 and ’70 he was involved in the photo fanzine Provoke, and his style of grainy, high-contrast images that came to be referred to as “are, bure, boke” (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus) made an impact on the realm of photography. Solo shows at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris solidified Moriyama’s worldwide reputation, and in 2012, he became the first Japanese to be awarded in the category of Lifetime Achievement at the 28th Annual Infinity Awards hosted by the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. The “William Klein + Daido Moriyama” exhibition together with William Klein at London’s Tate Modern in 2012-13 was a showdown of two immensely popular photographers that took the world by storm.
Publication
PANTOMIME
It was a long, long time ago. Each of them was sleeping in a liquid inside a small flask about the size of a human thumb. All of them had oyster-colored skins, and were shaped like shrimps.
In a glass case at the end of a row of shelves in a dark corridor of an obstetrics and gynecology hospital near the Tanzawa mountains in Kanagawa, countless fetuses in formaldehyde were quietly leaning on each other as they looked out into the sun-drenched courtyard.
– Daido Moriyama
TIGHTS IN SHIMOTAKAIDO
The second series following PANTOMIME of silk screen printing & hand binding.
Enjoy the world of dazzling world of mesh woven "tights", one of the motifs representing Moriyama.
BOKU
The 4th in a series of silkscreen-printed cover, hand-bound books in a limited hand-signed and numbered edition of 350 copies.
This photobook's photographes are all Daido Moriyama's various self-portraits.
PLASTIC LOVE
This is the fifth issue of a series of hand-bound books with silk-screened covers on canvas.
This book was compiled entirely of photographs of mannequins, which is one of Daido Moriyama’s favorite subject.
KURA chan
This is the sixth issue of a series of hand-bound books with silk-screened covers on canvas.
This is a re-edited edition of the images from Provoke Vol. 2 and 3, including many previously unpublished works that were not published at the time.
A special edition with an original print will also be released at the same time.
KANBAN
After PANTOMIME, Tights in Shimotakaido, Lips! Lips! Lips!, BOKU, PLASTIC LOVE and KURA chan, here it is the seventh issue of hand-bound books with silk-screened covers on canvas. This is a collection of photographs of the billboards jamming the streets of Moriyama Daido’s favorite cities.
The special edition with and original print included is also available.
TILES in AIZUWAKAMATSU
This is the eighth issue of a series of hand-bound books with silk-screened covers on canvas.
This time during a shooting trip, Moriyama found himself captured by the flood of roundish tiles decorating the restroom of his hotel room in Aizuwakamatsu.
A special edition with an original print will also be released at the same time.
Farewell Photography (A.P.)
The publication of Daido Moriyama’s photo book Farewell Photography in 1972 was certainly one of the most important events in the history of modern photography. It would be no exaggeration to say that it had such a great impact that the photography world was quite a different place after the book’s publication than it was before. It was repeatedly reissued between the first issue and today, and the effect it still has is as great – if not greater – now as it was in 1972.
This reproduced 2020 edition of Farewell Photography is based around those 80 images. The series consisted entirely of landscape format shots, and previous publications featured one photograph each across two pages, so that all of the images had folds in the center. In order to avoid ruining the photographs that way, and make it easier to fully appreciate every single one of them, the book design for this edition features a layout of one item per page.
– from editor's note