It’s rare for a photographer to share his or her contact sheets, even though they are a precious document for researchers, and a source of reassurance for other photographers. Magnum Photos was bold enough to publish a large collection of their contact sheets a while back, but this approach is still the exception. Now Daido Moriyama has published what amounts to a lifetime of work, a vast series of contact sheets soberly lined up without empty space on the 300 thick pages of the book. It’s a dizzying amount of images that one can easily get lost in, kilometers of black-and-white compositions alternatively vertical and horizontal following without chronological order the accidents of a restless life and an unleashed creativity. No captions or dates break the invariable scroll of frames printed in actual size. Only some numbers and the brand of the film, untouched by the photographer or an editor. The thread that guides us throughout this visual labyrinth is that certain images naturally stand out and catch the reader’s eye either because these are famous ones, or because they are the only capture of a scene. This alternation of unique shots and repeated exposures, sometimes almost obsessively – and finally often missed -, reminds us of the patience and the spontaneity required by the image, and in the case of a photographer like Moriyama, it sheds light on a body of work guided by the circumstances of his daily life, sometimes tender, sometimes violent. We notice the affirmation of his language made of coal-like texture, deconstructed frames, and unceasing movement. We recognize recurring themes in an oeuvre that spans fifty years, tirelessly documenting postwar Japan. This random and massive gallery impresses and fascinates, but once the surprise and curiosity are past, we began to regret a strict editing which ensures an editorial masterpiece to be opened and reopened without weariness.
Laurence Cornet
“Labyrinth” – Photographies de Daido Moriyama
Editions Aperture
304 pages
Designed by Hiroshi Nakajima
80 $
ISBN : 978-1-59711-217-8
