Harvard University Art Museums Present Exhibition of Japanese Photographer Daido Moriyama

In a rarity outside Japan, Fogg Art Museum and new Sert Gallery exhibit major photographer

Cambridge, MA – August 2, 2000 – The poignant and beautiful work made in the gritty streets of postwar Tokyo by photographer Daido Moriyama (b. 1938) will be presented in the Fogg Art Museum and extended into the new Sert Gallery of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts. The exhibition features nearly 200 black-and-white images that examine the ambiguous relationship of postwar Japanese society to Western and particularly American influences in its larger cultural context. Organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, this is the first exhibition to survey the work of Moriyama and will be on view from August 5 through November 5, 2000, in both locations at Harvard.

"We are thrilled to bring the work of this major Japanese photographer to the greater Harvard community," said James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "The exhibition is a perfect example of our interest in contemporary art from around the world and our ongoing commitment to photography."

Born in the port city of Osaka in 1938, Moriyama turned to photography at the age of 21 and moved to Tokyo to work with the eminent photographer Eikoh Hosoe. Moriyama served as Hosoe’s assistant for three years, becoming familiar with the major artists of the period, including the writer Yukio Mishima. Early in his career, Moriyama became acquainted with the work of both William Klein and Andy Warhol, and he appreciated their new visions, transforming them from his own personal perspective. The energy and dynamic modernity Moriyama found in the emotional, even hostile pictures Klein made of his native New York intrigued the young Japanese photographer, as did the perception of a voyeuristic media culture in Warhol’s work and Warhol’s special attachment to material goods in a consumer society.

Moriyama’s pictures are taken in the streets of Japan’s major urban areas. Made with a small, hand-held camera, they reveal the speed with which they were snapped. Often the frame is tilted, the grain pronounced, and the contrast emphasized. Among his city images are those shot in underlit bars, strip clubs, on the streets, or in alleyways, with the movement of the subject creating a blurred suggestion of a form rather than a distinct figure.

His best-known picture, Stray Dog, 1971 – after which the exhibition is titled – is clearly taken on the run, in the midst of bustling, lively street activity. The representation of the alert, wandering, solitary, but ultimately mysterious animal is a powerful expression of the vital outsider. It is an essential reflection of Moriyama’s presence as an outsider in his own culture.

The largest body of work in the exhibition dates from the first two decades of Moriyama’s creative production: the 1960s and 1970s, a period of great political and social upheaval in many parts of the world. Moriyama’s photography was also part of an intense period in Japanese art. Much of the work produced in Japan in theater, film, literature, art, and photography appears radical today as it represented a clear break from the past. Japanese artistic production of the 1960s and 1970s was deeply affected by the American postwar occupation and its effect on the Japanese, with its conflicting messages of democracy and control and peaceful coexistence, and by the strong American presence in Asia – and on Japanese soil – during the Vietnam period.

Radical artists, including Moriyama, sought a firm break with the highly regulated Japanese society that was responsible for the war, as well as an affirmation of the vitality of a pre-modern culture that was specifically Japanese. Thus, the pictures Moriyama took of the American Navy base Yokosuka – reflecting the freedom he saw there – and the stray dog near the Air Force base at Misawa acknowledge both the liberating newness of the modern experience and its primal rawness. His early work acknowledges the freedom and power of American-style liberation: an early series – titled On the Road, with Jack Kerouac’s novel in mind – depicts life on the run, seen quickly through the windows of a moving car.

Moriyama published his work extensively in books and magazines. In 1974 he had his first solo exhibition, featuring works from the Tales of Tono series – diptychs shot in the more rural regions of Japan. During this period Moriyama’s work first became known outside of Japan. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, included 26 of Moriyama’s photographs in the New Japanese Photography exhibition in 1974. But in the later 1970s, the photographer became disenchanted with his work and withdrew into a period of self-reflection with little creative output.

"The installation of this landmark exhibition at Harvard includes a special selection of Moriyama’s important publications," said Deborah Martin Kao, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, Fogg Art Museum. "They provide the immediate and essential context for the artist’s mesmerizing photographs."

In the early 1980s, his work returned with a sharper edge: it moved away from the ambiguity and graininess of his earlier photographs toward a bleaker, more distinct vision, evidenced in the Light and Shadow series and pictures from Osaka , the latest works presented in the exhibition.

Several public programs will be offered in conjunction with Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog. From gallery talks and photography workshops to the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series In the Shadow of the Bomb: Japanese Art and Culture, 1945-2000, each will offer a unique perspective on the life and times of Daido Moriyama and his artistic work. For more information on these and other programs, call the Friends Office at (617) 495-4544.

Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the leading arts institutions in the United States and the world. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

The three art museums at Harvard – the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Fogg Art Museum – are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, long a leader in the research and development of scientific and technology-based analysis of art. The 150,000 objects in the art museums’ collections range in date from ancient times to the present and come from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Each museum also has an active program of special exhibitions that promotes new scholarship in its areas of focus.

As an integral component of the Harvard University community, the three art museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs in the various museums. The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas: Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a uniquely broad and rich resource that is continually enhanced through gifts and acquisitions. Together, the holdings of the three museums comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.

The Straus Center for Conservation is the oldest fine arts conservation treatment, research, and training facility in the United States. The Center specializes in the conservation of paintings, sculpture, decorative objects, historic and archaeological artifacts, and works of art on paper. Its team members are pioneers in developing new applications of digital imaging in conservation. The Center’s state-of-the-art facilities support a broad range of analytical services.

All three art museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday, 1–5 p.m., and are closed on national holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and for all individuals on Saturdays until noon and all day on Wednesdays.

For general information, call 617-495-9400 or visit www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. All groups of seven or more must schedule in advance by calling 617-496-8576. The Harvard University Art Museums receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.