In 1974, the photographer Daido Moriyama presented an exhibition called “Printing Show” in Tokyo. In the center of a room, Moriyama manned a photocopying machine, cranking out reproductions of photographs he’d shot in New York in 1971, which then filled the pages of ad-hoc photo books. This past weekend, Moriyama gave a repeat performance of the show at the Aperture Foundation. On the periphery of the gallery, visitors looked through images that Moriyama had shot in Tokyo over the past fifteen years, choosing which ones would fill their versions of a book called “TKY.” The center of the gallery was a bustling production space, where Moriyama and his team Xeroxed, folded, and then assembled each visitor’s selections into a one-of-a-kind, staple-bound, signed edition of “TKY,” complete with a silk-screened cover. The result, according to the event’s organizer, Ivan Vartanian, is an artifact that “collapses the distance that separates the photographers from consumer.” Here’s a selection from Moriyama’s “Printing Show” images, which may or may not be in any of the five hundred copies of “TKY.”
All images © Daido Moriyama, 2011. Courtesy Ivan Vartanian/Goliga.
