Rome MAXXI’s “Tokyo Revisited”— Daido Moriyama con Shomei Tomatsu
Two world-class masters of photography express their encounter with the cauldron of the city Tokyo. It is set on fire in this innovative fluid multi-media presentation in MAXXI, a museum of contemporary art based in the eternal city of Rome. Deemed a double-monographic exhibition, Moriyama considers it a true honor to be shown alongside his master, Tomatsu.
Curators Hou Hanru and Elena Motisi create a vibrant and pulsing tour-de-force of life— distilled, celebrated, uncensored without judgement or justification. Raw, romantic, sensual, gritty, blurred and sharp. Each turn is a portal into a kaleidoscope of creativity. The individual works, the layered presentations, the intense color and knife-edged layout. It was electrifying. Never overwhelming, but contained within the multitudes seen and captured.
Brilliantly sliced into worlds, each described their context— the lens with which they shared a frame. Manga is a social network built by the mass documentation and image distribution of Japanese photographers. An innovative method to share observations, emotions and fantasies, long before the internet was conceived.
Tokyo is an epicenter of urban mutation, synthesizing an imperial past with a dazzling modernization. In response, our collective social psychology morphs our values and notions of beauty with dizzying speed. Resistance and rebellion, pleasure and decadence are mirrored in the masterful snapshots each photographer sought in exploring the underworld of Shinjuku.
Each master resonated with the analogy of seeing as a stray dog. Their acute awareness held with an unfocused gaze, allowing each to roam; nomadic, reflexive, engaged and detached. For both, photography was less an art form, more a way of life. Each found ways to ground themselves. For Moriyama, either with the use of a mirror or an encounter with his shadow.
I was thrilled to hear and read of their connectivity to the “rhizomatic way of seeing,” as described by Deleuze and Guattari. A truth lies beneath the surface, we share a tenacious inter connectivity, one subterranean life force. These masters registered with sensitivity this “naked reality.” B&W imagery, blazing neon, and printed matter vibrate, reverberate and riff, creating a loop of movement, a cacophony of expression— horizontally expansive, all encompassing, and fueled by love.
This exhibition will be on display at Rome’s MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art until October 16th, 2022.