{"id":863,"date":"2010-03-11T12:17:45","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T17:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/?p=863"},"modified":"2011-08-01T12:37:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T17:37:22","slug":"daido-moriyama-at-luhring-augustine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/11\/daido-moriyama-at-luhring-augustine\/","title":{"rendered":"Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Daido Moriyama, Hawaii, 2007. Photograph courtesy of Luhring Augustine, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A lone, hunched figure\u2014Van Gogh\u2019s\u00a0Sorrow<\/em>\u00a0draped in a beach towel\u2014opens postwar Japanese photography legend Daido Moriyama\u2019s show about Hawaii, but its brooding mood is misleading. In contrast to a selection of his photos from the \u201970s and \u201980s in the back gallery, Moriyama\u2019s recent work is literally and figuratively lighter, departing from his trademark rough, blurred and out-of-focus style in a redemptively upbeat portrayal of the islands.<\/p>\n

With refreshing honesty, Moriyama doesn\u2019t pretend to be anything other than an outsider, sticking to themes of sun, sand and tourism. Apart from a few shots\u2014weeds engulfing an abandoned car or a hula girl mural in a grubby yard\u2014he\u2019s less interested in exposing life behind the scenes than transforming stereotypical subject matter, which he does with mixed success. A grainy shot of fog rolling in over tropical vegetation and blurred images of palms are nothing new, but a fast-food joint made radically strange by dramatic sunlight or a still close-up of a highly erotic conch shell render the overly familiar strange.<\/p>\n

Instead of mounting a critique of crass commercialism, Moriyama portrays tourists as intrinsic to or respectful of the landscape\u2014a kid crawls turtlelike on the beach, and poncho-wearing lava watchers resemble pilgrims\u2014while uncommonly pleasant tourist-shop mannequins portray commerce as low-key. Lest the series come across as too feel-good, Moriyama adds an excremental pile of lava here, a grotesque sunbather there. But with the exception of a kitschy image of a dog wearing sunglasses\u2014a far cry from the artist\u2019s iconic 1971 depiction of a menacing stray\u2014the series\u2019s positive tone is striking evidence of Moriyama\u2019s sensitivity to Hawaii\u2019s mutability.<\/p>\n

Originally published in Time Out New York, no 753, March 4-10, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lone, hunched figure\u2014Van Gogh\u2019s\u00a0Sorrow\u00a0draped in a beach towel\u2014opens postwar Japanese photography legend Daido Moriyama\u2019s show about Hawaii, but its brooding mood is misleading. In contrast to a selection of his photos from the \u201970s and \u201980s in the back gallery, Moriyama\u2019s recent work is literally and figuratively lighter, departing from his trademark rough, blurred … <\/p>\n

Read more “Daido Moriyama at Luhring Augustine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[8,29,18,9,15,49,14,13,12,36,17,16,34,11,35],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-art-criticism","tag-artist","tag-contemporary","tag-critic","tag-daido-moriyama","tag-exhibition","tag-gallery","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-photography","tag-tour","tag-tours","tag-visual-art","tag-visual-arts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BDOD-dV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newyorkarttours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}