It appears I won’t be able to keep my promise that this will be a seniberat post. Because I just don’t want to kid myself. Period.
I never pretend to really ‘get’ any deeper meaning in art. Perhaps I do ‘get’ it to some miniscule extent, I guess, when prompted or guided, but I really cannot do the fartsy interpretation bit à la “this twisted band of welded metal represents the juxtaposition of the foul (as opposed to fowl, as in bird) and the innate beauty of life’s inner workings”[1]. That, to me, is mere cock, wank and jism. Just pardon my French.
I was intrigued with Daido Moriyama‘s work following Murg’s introduction merely because how Daido partially deconstructed my up to now perceived ethos of good photography which I felt had to comprise both technique and equipment. Conversely, Daido partially reinforced many aspects of how I do photography which is basically founded on intuition. I do understand the physics of photography on a very basic level, though – faster speed goes hand in hand with a larger aperture size, and vice versa – which had put me in good stead since I was in form 2 dabbling with my dad’s AE-1. Whenever I take shots on my travels, my gut feeling plays an important part in a shot although I have to admit to attempting to get conventional shots inspired by well-used (to death, I must say) methods[2]. Another intuitive aspect I found in Daido’s photos that echoed with my own experience is the curating – I don’t dwell too long in making decisions when I curate my material for my flickr.com album. I have no knowledge whatsoever but to just put out what I think looks OK on an online set. Doesn’t have to be all that great nor relevant, just OK.
For the first time ever, I was at the Tate Modern in London on this past Saturday morning to catch the William Klein/Daido Moriyama exhibition which started its run in October of last year. I have to admit my attendance at the gallery was leaning more towards seeing Daido’s work, but on viewing Klein’s works in the first seven rooms, I was well impressed with his work which was more mixed, media-wise, courtesy of his past dabblings as a painter. I also learnt that Daido had at one early point in his career was influenced by Klein’s B&W photobooks. Daido’s photos were spread out in the subsequent 6 rooms after Klein’s section and I was impressed that there was a wealth of his material, actually.
As I walked from room to room, looking the evolving phases of his images which began in the material found in his first photobook in 1968 and his Provoke material, all the way through the 1970’s (which included his seminal Farewell Photography – 写真よさようなら）to Daido’s interest in reproducing his own previous works (the last room had a few versions of Stray Dog) – I could only relate my experience by typing down in this blog post what went through my mind as I looked at every grainy and high contrast B&W image there was on show:
• I would start looking at a work at its face value, possibly dissecting any technicalities involved despite my near to zero knowledge of art
• I try to figure out if there is any meaning to the work, explicit or implicit
• If the shot is of people, these questions come through my mind – who are they? What were they doing, or thinking?[3] Are they alive or dead now?
• I find the fact that Daido shoots anything reassuring – the multitudes of signage at the red light district in Kabuki-cho, people’s laundry, roadside detritus, the passing dog. This compelled me to just shoot, and decide later in curating!
Looking at his work that had spanned essentially four decades and thinking back to how Daido does his 6-hour photo walks (it’s four hours now, due to his age) in Shinjuku made me realised the randomness (“[My] approach is very simple – there is no artistry, [I] just shoot freely”) which, in my opinion, imitates the way we take in our sights when we walk around a place, would end up as celluloid documentation of many details of every day life. If you had seen Near Equal, a docu on Daido’s work, you’d appreciate that a conspicuous number of shots are also taken furtively. Perhaps a leaf from this book should be taken to increase my chance of taking photos that contain people, which I feel is lacking somewhat in my shots. Then again, Daido’s work also include what I call ‘ass shots’ which I tend to take as I’m too chickenshit to take photos of people upfront. Not that it should make me lazy when I go out and shoot but hey if that was the moment you got to snap, so be it then. It’s this serendipitous (and fortuitous) parallel to my own way of photography that makes me want to march on and take more photos[4].
Daido Moriyama comes across as photographer with no pretense whatsover. As a man armed with a pocketable compact roaming Shinjuku (or NYC or Buenos Aires), he is unassuming and I dare say his photos are as just as unassuming, with no element of premeditation. I’d like to think whilst the act of an exhibiting one’s work in a gallery as prestigious as the Tate[5] to some reeks of pretension, any form of this is largely perceived, because I don’t see any of it on Saturday.
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[1]This is made up, but derived from an actual conversation between the judges of the Turner Prize that I caught on Channel 4 when I was at medical school. Suffice to say, my housemates and I were rolling on the floor laughing our asses off.
[2]Read mat bokeh shots.
[3]This is no way related to the lyrics to Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge.
[4]And that I did. Curated the shots taken before and after being at the Tate here.
[5]I missed the much coveted one day Printing Show in October which recreated a participatory exhibition in 1974 following Daido’s visit to NYC a few years prior. Then again, if you mentioned Daido’s name without spelling it back then, I’d probably go, “Yeah, I’ve not heard her songs for a while now”.
