Untitled (Primary Speaking) Untitled (Primary Speaking) Untitled (Agnus Dei) Tokyo Shinjuku Gyoen, Shinjuku Tokyo Sakuragaoka, Shibuya Ward Tokyo Taitō-ku, Hanakawado, Sumida Park picnic # 18 picnic # 14 picnic # 2 Shinjuku Bar Shinjuku, 2002
Drawn from the Getty Museum's collection, this one–gallery exhibition of photographs presents four responses to the dense, hyperreal megalopolis that is Tokyo (illustrated exhibition checklist, 7 PP, 246KB). Although a kaleidoscopic vision would seem to be required to represent this stratified, vertical capital, the Japanese photographers featured in this show have found a way to portray their city at human scale.

Shigeichi Nagano observes the interactions of community within a perpetually rebuilt environment, as he has since the 1950s. Masato Seto focuses on the hard–won leisure of local couples escaping the cramped quarters of high–rise living for the scarce green space of public parks. Daidō Moriyama haunts the burgeoning neighborhood of Shinjuku for fragments of nightlife that he renders in exaggerated contrasts of black and white. Mikiko Hara adopts a quiet, daylit, snapshot style to spontaneously capture anonymous portraits of her young contemporaries in the streets and subways.


All works purchased with funds generously provided by the Getty Museum Photographs Council.