Read Our Interview Of Legendary Japanese Photographer Keizo Kitajima On The Photographic Process And His New Solo Show In Los Angeles →

You could say that Keizo Kitajima is an heir to the Provoke photography movement’s electrifying foundation and principle idea that a photographic image can be a completely new type of language. It’s a language fired from the shutter of a camera – a lexicon that can encapsulate a fraction of a moment, yet recite an epic in a single explosive image. Often blurry, out of focus and with choking contrast, the short lived movement made icons out of photographers such as Daido Moriyama. Moriyama also seemed to have the most influence, especially on Kitajima who was encouraged to carry on in the tradition of Provoke, but also expand beyond its confines – to travel the world to see if that same language could tell a more universal story. Click here to read more. 

Daido Moriyama: Memoirs of Light

Daido Moriyama, Hippie Crime 1970

"Photographs are the footprints of light and memory, photographs are the history of memory. The myth of the light." Daido Moriyama "Memories of Light" traces the journey of a wandering photographer who, after half a century on the road, had only guides for his memory and memories. Born in 1938 in Osaka, Daido Moriyama has experienced war, the defeat of Japan, the U.S. military occupation, the rise and decline of the "economic miracle." The Polka Gallery in Paris presents "Memory of Light" an exhibition of Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama.

Daido Moriyama, Aomori, Japon, 1971

Daido Moriyama, Tokyo, 1978

Daido Moriyama, Halo, 1976

www.polkagallerie.com