Daido Moriyama (Tokyo, Japan)

Daido Moriyama (b. 1938) is one of Japan’s leading photographers. He was born in Osaka and is based in Tokyo.

After a period as a freelance graphic designer, He worked as an assistant to photographers Takeji Iwamiya and Eikoh Hosoe, before going independent in 1964.

In 1968, he published Japan:A Photo Theater as the first in a series of avant-garde photo collections that were to be characterized as blurry, out-of-focus,and grainry. From that point on, he dismantle the conventional concepts and systems of the world of photography.

In 1972 he took the approach to the extreame with his photo collections Fairwell Photography, A Hunter, and the early publications in the Record series that continued up to Record No5 in 1973.

He then stopped taking photographs for a while, but made a full return in 1982 with Light and Shadow. Asahi Camera then began to serialize his Memories of a Dog essays.

His work continued at full strength in the 1990s, publishing Daido-hysteric(1993-97) and several other innovative series of essays and collections.

Moriyama gained international acclaim, and in 1998 he took a major retrospective exhibition on a two-year tour of the US, commencing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

His first photo collection depicting Shinjuku was published in 2002. Also in 2002, he held a solo exhibition at the Foundation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris.

Recent publications include the collections Record No6(2006,and subsequent issues in the revived Record series), Hokkaido(2008), and Northern(2009).

He has received many awards,and has presented his works in many exhibitions around the world.