Daido Moriyama & William Klein | Selections from the Tate Modern

Guest curated by Susan Sherrick
June 25-July 26, 2014

Opening reception: July 5th, 6 to 9 pm

This exhibition takes a look at the relationship between William Klein, one of the most influential fashion and street photographers of our time, and Daido Moriyama, the most important Japanese photographer to emerge from the Provoke movement of the 1960's.

With images that were made between the mid 1950's through the late 1970's, the exhibition explores both artist's affinity for using natural light to make grainy, blurred and out of focus photographs, trademarks of their work, while showing their own distinct stripped down version of the street and urban life.

Between 1956-1960 William Klein published a four-volume book set on street photography each devoted to a different International capital: Rome, New York, Tokyo and Moscow. Moriyama who has widely spoken on how Klein has played a major influence on his work, studied these books. While Klein's images tend toward a more energetic nature, Moriyama's lean more towards the  gritty and erotic.

William Klein (b.1928) was born and raised in New York City. He moved to Paris in 1948 to study painting under Fernand Leger. A number of years later during a show of his paintings in Italy he met Alexander Lieberman of Vogue who encouraged him to come back to New York and work as a fashion photographer. He used the money he made shooting for Vogue and other fashion publications to finance his paintings and filmmaking projects. He lives and works in Paris.

Daido Moriyama (b.1938) was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. He moved to Tokyo in 1961 where he still lives and works. After moving to Tokyo he became involved with a group of left wing photographers who were responsible for breaking in a new era in Japanese photography, that moved away from the conservative and focused more on radical content.  They founded the magazine Provoke which ran for 3 issues between 1968-69. This is when Moriyama became infamous for his blurry, rough, out of focus images. He has also sighted Jack Kerouac as a major influence on his work.

In October 2012, Tate Modern London opened a major, joint retrospective of their work. Many of the images included in that exhibition are included in this show at Tinney. Both artists have been widely published and have been exhibited world-wide. Their work can be found in many, major museum institutions including: Museum of Modern Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Getty, Los Angeles, The Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

All images ©William Klein, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, © Daido Moriyama / Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo; Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York and Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation, Tokyo.