William Klein + Daido Moriyama in London

I wish I was in London to see a new exhibit opening at the Tate Modern today, “William Klein + Daido Moriyama,” a career retrospective of two artists that simultaneously defined street photography in the 1950s and ’60s from opposite ends of the world. Working predominantly in grainy black and white, the two artists set the tone for photographers as urban explorers, mining their respective cities (New York and Tokyo) for impressionistic single-frame stories.

Books were also extremely important to both artists' careers, especially Moriyama’s. He’ll be demonstrating that fact with another performance of his live “Printing Show” this Sunday at the museum. We attended a similar event in New York last year, in which guests were invited to curate their own Moriyama book, which was then assembled on demand on the premises.

Memory of Dog 2, 1982

© Daido Moriyama

The show will be up at the Tate through January 20. Elsewhere on the web, 1000 Words Photography has some thoughts on the preview and a quick interview with Moriyama here.