Daidō Moriyama - Photographs London Wednesday, May 18, 2016 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    From the artist
    Private Collection, Japan

  • Literature

    ‘Accident 6 – 事故 [Jiko]’, Asahi Camera, June 1969
    D. Moriyama, 狩人 [Karyudo] Hunter, Chuokoron-sha, 1972
    S. Phillips et al., Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/ D.A.P., 1999, pl. 62, no. 103, there titled Police Safety Poster
    Moriyama 55, Paidon, 2001, pp. 44-45
    Hunter of Light: Daido Moriyama 1965-2003, Shimane Art Museum/ NHK Educatuional, 2003, p. 110, pl. 135, there titled 事故 [Jiko] Crash
    Daido Moriyama: The Complete Works, Vol. 1 1964-1973, Daiwa Radiator Factory, 2003, p. 205, no. 527
    Provoke: Between Protest and Performance – Photography in Japan 1960/1975, Steidl, 2016, pp. 420-421

  • Catalogue Essay

    'The life and death contrast of people and objects – exposed in this one photograph on a poster I happen to see – made a great impact on me as something extremely accidental and strangely scandalous.'
    Moriyama Daido

    In 1969, the Andy Warhol-inspired Accident series was serialised from January to December in 12 monthly issues of Asahi Camera. For this key series from the short-lived yet highly influential Provoke movement, Moriyama liberally appropriated images from a wide range of sources, including tabloid newspapers, magazines and television. To create Smash-up, Moriyama re-photographed a photograph of a car crash that was reproduced on a police road safety poster. ‘To speak of extremes,’ Moriyama commented in 1969, ‘I consider everything that is in front of me the same, whether they are cigarettes, matches, television, cinema screens, photographs taken by others, or my photographs. They are all [part of one] reality.’

    Smash-up first appeared in the June 1969 issue of Asahi Camera alongside five vertical close-up shots of various parts of the original poster. This act of closing in on the photograph reminds us of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966) and the sequence of grainy blow-ups of photographs taken by the anti-hero Thomas, who unwittingly has witnessed a murder. In questioning the purpose of photography and rejecting the notion that photography must be art, Moriyama created the present photograph – the epitome of Provoke philosophy and aesthetic.

Ultimate

65

Smash-up from アクシデント [Akushidento] Accident

1969
Gelatin silver print.
Image: 19 x 28.4 cm (7 1/2 x 11 1/8 in.)
Sheet: 25.3 x 30.6 cm (9 7/8 x 12 in.)

Signed in Japanese and rōmaji in pencil and dated in green ink on the verso.

This work is one of only three known vintage prints of this seminal Provoke-era image. One print is in the collection of the Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics and the other print, which set the artist’s world auction record when it sold at auction in 2008, is slightly smaller in size and held privately.

Estimate
£15,000 - 25,000 

Sold for £20,000

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4092

Photographs

London Auction 19 May 2016