Images of Images: Photographic Thinking in 1960s and ‘70s Japan

A substantial amount of images that Daido Moriyama made during his formative years are of other images: television screens, billboards, posters, and even photographs. Although undeniably omnipresent, they are often cropped and blurred, rendered naïve, if not vulnerable, in their effort to reformulate reality.

This talk considers that particular element of Moriyama’s work with regard to the intensified technological mediation of the lived experience during the 1960s and ‘70s. Often referring to his camera as a ‘photocopier’, he seems to have been preoccupied with what Susan Sontag termed as the ‘image-world’, or our ever-increasing reliance on the mechanical reproduction to engender and communicate meaning. What kind of thinking about photography informs this approach to practice and can we articulate it as a form of photographic thinking in its own right?

Jelena Stojković, PhD, is Lecturer in History and Theory of Photography at the Arts University Bournemouth. She is the author of Surrealism and Photography in 1930s Japan: The Impossible Avant-Garde, forthcoming from Bloomsbury.

The lecture will be held in English.

Time: Wednesday, 6 November 6:00-7:00 pm

Place: Hasselblad Center, located at the Gothenburg Museum of Art

Admission: Free admission for visitors under the age of 25 years. Single entry 60 SEK. Annual pass 100 SEK.