The MEP is pleased to present a major exhibition bringing together two great masters of post-war Japanese photography.

The Moriyama - Tomatsu: Tokyo exhibition was conceived by artists Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu - before the latter's death in 2012 - as a way to celebrate their city around a first artistic collaboration.

Known as a master of snapshots, Moriyama Daido, one of Japan’s preeminent photographers, began his career in the 1960s. His grainy, high-contrast style, which came to be described as “are, bure, boke” (rough, blurry, out of focus), sent shockwaves through the photography world. Over the years, Moriyama has held large exhibitions at museums in a host of different countries, and received countless international photography prizes, including the 2019 Hasselblad Award, and today, 55 years after his debut, he remains active at the forefront of the art world.

Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama is the recipient of the 2019 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. The award ceremony will take place in Gothenburg, Sweden on October 13, 2019. A symposium will be held on October 14, followed by the opening of an exhibition of Moriyama’s work at the Hasselblad Center, and the release of a new book about the artist, published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König.

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Image: Daido Moriyama, Coffee Shop, 1984

Photo credit: © Daido Moriyama / Courtesy of Simon Lee Gallery and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo

The Gaze of Things: Japanese Photography in the Context of Provoke shows a selection of works from the Per Amor a l’Art Collection, that constitutes the most important private collection of Japanese photography between 1957 and 1972 outside Japan. The exhibition brings together a selection of images that focuses on the artists, among them João Penalva, involved in the formation of VIVO (1959-1961), as well as the collective responsible for Provoke magazine (Provocative Materials for Thought) (1968).