Daido Moriyama

Polka is happy to announce Daido Moriyama’s return to the gallery. Eight years after the cycle of exhibitions dedicated to the Japanese artist, Polka presents "Speakeasy", a strange place of worship inhabited by mysterious men, a multitude of women, inanimate beings and objects, where even the graphic lines of bathroom tiles morph to resemble the net of women’s
pantyhose. A kaleidoscope of color and black and white images makes up this world of Moriyamapolis.

Daido Moriyama’s "Speakeasy" is an exhibition that revisits his radical, yet subtle body of work, that is more diverse than it may seem. It is a journey through the streets and back-shops of Tokyo and other Japanese cities, by day and oftentimes by night, Daido’s cities have no limits. This is why, be it prison or paradise, one cannot escape his urban world. Everything belongs to it. All roads lead to it, from highways to the narrowest, sprawling dark alleys. “Moriyama says that he only recently realized he had photographed cities all his life, simultaneously building a single giant city unconsciously out of his imagination”, reflects Simon Baker, the director of The Maison Européenne de la Photographie, where the exhibition “Moriyama – Tomatsu: Tokyo” is on view until October 24 th. In black and white and in color, "Speakeasy" draws on the photographer’s work throughout the years to assemble the backstage of this infinite Moriyamapolis; a world constantly recomposed and augmented by the accumulation of information.

Before us rises a city that could only belong to the singular Japanese artist. "All I know is that I feed off my surroundings and this 'city' with which I have a strange relationship”, Daido Moriyama recounts. “I do not wander around in search of my next subject; it is they who find me. I am a passive object in front of an active subject. Even when I am still, the city continues to move forward, to live and to transform. I am happy to simply photograph what passes in front of me, without ever attaining the feeling of satiety."

In the exhibition’s visual references, we find echoes of Buñuel's experiments, but also reflections of Eli Lotar’s visceral compositions at the slaughterhouses of La Villettethat captivated Georges Bataille. In the graphic image of bathroom tiles we discern a pattern that could be a woman’s fishnet stocking. The luscious outlines of mouths float and overlap atop the harsh landscape. A night bathed in black light, the guiding thread of the urban experience, is just one piece of the puzzle, a small fragment of the city’s mystery
illuminated by moonlight.

“I simply feel the need to convey the things that capture my attention. I do not know the reason for this urge, which reveals my own personal fetishism."
Daido Moriyama