Daido Moriyama

Published in 2013 to coincide with a major retrospective at the Tate Modern, this monograph serves as a definitive survey of Daido Moriyama’s prolific career. The volume was created to introduce international audiences to his gritty, high-contrast aesthetic, which emerged from the postwar Japanese avant-garde movement. By curating a selection of his work from the 1960s to the 2010s, the publication captures his signature approach to street photography, characterized by a deliberate disregard for conventional framing and technical perfection.

The book’s design emphasizes the raw, visceral quality of Moriyama’s images, drawing heavily from the grainy, low-fidelity style popularized by his work in the magazine Provoke. The curation process, guided by the collaboration between the artist and Tate editors, focuses on his obsession with urban decay and the frenetic energy of Tokyo. Upon its release, the book was well-received by critics and photography historians for providing a cohesive narrative to a body of work that had previously been scattered across ephemeral zines and exhibition catalogues.