If you want to do something a bit different and fancy perusing the incredible work of Daido Moriyama, twelve years after his first exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, the eminent Japanese photographer will return to the foundation for a new exhibition that focuses on his recent work.
Daido Moriyama Daido exhibition will take place at the Fondation Cartier from February 6 to June 5, 2016.

Featuring a large selection of colour photographs, Daido Tokyo will shed light on this lesser-known yet ubiquitous aspect of his photographic practice over the last two decades.

The Fondation Cartier has commissioned new work from Moriyama in conjunction with the exhibition. Entitled Dog and Mesh Tights, this immersive multiscreen projection of black-and-white photographs will plunge viewers into the commotion of the contemporary city, capturing fragments of daily life from its unrelenting urban hustle and bustle.

Not only will you appreciate Moriyama’s work, you’ll also gain an insight into his early years and lifestyle in Japan, where he witnessed the dramatic changes that took place in the decades following World War II. Moriyama invented a new visual language to express the conflicting realities of a society caught between tradition and modernity.

Diverse influences can be seen in his early work – when he was starting out as a freelance photographer in 1964 – as well as later in his contributions to Provoke, an avant-garde photographic magazine he joined in 1968. Out of focus, vertiginously tilted or invasively cropped, Moriyama’s images reflect the disjunctive nature of contemporary urban experience. This style of black-and-white photography would characterize the photographs of his first publications, Japan: A Photo Theater (1968) and Farewell Photography (1972), and establish his reputation as a photographer of international importance.

In his photographs, colour is not opposed to black-and-white; the two are instead complementary. For Moriyama, black-and-white images are associated with the realm of the symbolic, while colour speaks explicitly of reality, of the world and the people
around him when he is out on the streets of Tokyo:

“The black and white tells about my inner worlds, my emotions and deep feelings that I feel every day walking through the streets of Tokyo or other cities, as a vagabond aimlessly. The colour describes what I meet without any filters, and I like to record the instant for the way it looks to me. The first one is rich in contrast, is harsh and fully reflects my solitary nature. The second one is polite, gentle, as I set myself towards the world.”

Products of direct confrontations with the urban environment, the photographs of Daido Moriyama present a vision of the world caught between reality and subjective experience. To get caught up in his latest works and to experience this all for yourself, head down to the exhibition.

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