--- description: Daido Moriyama, who is featured in a new exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, arrived in Tokyo in 1961 and began photographing the seedy streets of Shinjuku. title: Daido Moriyama And the Cultural Landscape of Post-War Japan image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900a7267991e16dd/69879c9fa988ca1eaf6ae0fe/untitled-ac1993-69-1.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Daido Moriyama And the Cultural Landscape of Post-War Japan by [Alana Celii](/author/alana-celii/) ## Alana Celii Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 6, 2012 8:00 AM CUT  Untitled, circa 1975 Untitled, circa 1975Daido Moriyama—Ralph M. Parsons Fund by [Alana Celii](/author/alana-celii/) ## Alana Celii Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Apr 6, 2012 8:00 AM CUT Youth culture, through revolt, unabashedly asks us to question and confront our historical and cultural traditions. In post-war Japan, the explosion of the _taiyozoku_ or sun tribe—a term for the youth sub-culture that emerged in the 1950s—was seen by the older, conservative generations as crude and violent. Flooded with new imagery from the West, there was a break in the connection to the past and thus a rejection of traditional values. Affected by the _nouvelle vague_ Western youth and media, the _taiyozoku_ were pictured as promiscuous and nihilistic, throwing their cares to the wind. Arriving in Tokyo in 1961, Daido Moriyama began photographing the seedy streets of Shinjuku, a ward ravaged during the war. Although the Shinjuku of today is best known as the economic and commercial center of Tokyo, it still retains a revolutionary spirit that started in its post-war bars and red-light district. Moriyama’s high-contrast, gritty depictions capture the energy native to the neighborhood, creating a visual history of Tokyo’s youth throughout one of its most combustible phases in history. It is this power that shapes Moriyama’s work, creating an unfolding visual testament to the cultural landscape of post-war Japan. A new exhibition pays tribute to Moriyama’s four decade relationship with Shinjuku, which serves as a photographic act of memory and desire. In _Fracture: Daido Moriyama_, opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on April 7, these notions are explored through a selection of prints and books, as well as recent color work. Moriyama began his career in Tokyo assisting the photographer Eikoh Hosoe. Hosoe was a member of the influential artist collective VIVO, which served to capture the significant cultural and structural changes within Japanese society. In line with this method of working, Moriyama began to roam the streets of Shinjuku and, since the early 1960s, has been witness to the ever-changing and expanding post-WWII landscape—a fractured, strange world that oscillates between time and space, reality and fiction. [Fracture: Daido Moriyama](http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/fracture-daido-moriyama "undefined") _is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from April 7 through July 31._  Untitled, circa 1975 Daido Moriyama—Ralph M. Parsons Fund  Shinjuku #11, 2000 Daido Moriyama—Collection of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck  Love Motel, Miyagi Prefecture, 1970 Daido Moriyama—Collection of Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck  Untitled (male geisha), 1968 Daido Moriyama—Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser Collection of Photographs  Untitled, printed 2011 Daido Moriyama  Untitled (woman in white dress running), 1971 Daido Moriyama—Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser Collection of Photographs  Untitled (shadows with tires), printed 2009 Daido Moriyama—Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser  Untitled, printed 2011 Daido Moriyama  Kagerou (Mayfly), 1972 Daido Moriyama—Collection of Gloria Katz and Williard Huyck ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3787568/daido-moriyama/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3787568/daido-moriyama/"},"headline":"Daido Moriyama And the Cultural Landscape of Post-War Japan","datePublished":"2012-04-06T08:00:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:08.098Z","description":"Daido Moriyama, who is featured in a new exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, arrived in Tokyo in 1961 and began photographing the seedy streets of Shinjuku.","url":"https://time.com/3787568/daido-moriyama/","keywords":["LightBox","Japan","los angeles","Out There","exhibition","black and white photography"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900a7267991e16dd/69879c9fa988ca1eaf6ae0fe/untitled-ac1993-69-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alana Celii","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alana-celii/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt900a7267991e16dd/69879c9fa988ca1eaf6ae0fe/untitled-ac1993-69-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Daido Moriyama, Untitled, circa 1975","caption":"Lightbox Daido Moriyama","creditText":"Daido Moriyama—Ralph M. 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