EXHIBITIONS
Daido Moriyama / Sayre Gomez “Hellooooo”
Curated by Matt Black
Date: Apr 12 – May 31, 2025
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Kyobashi & Tennozu
Opening reception: Saturday, Apr 12, 17:00 – 19:00
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Kyobashi
Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to present Daido Moriyama / Sayre Gomez “Hellooooo,” a dialogue between the paintings and sculptures of American artist Sayre Gomez and the photography of Daido Moriyama. Both artists investigate the fundamentals of their respective cities, Los Angeles and Tokyo, which are deeply rooted in their work and represented by their distinct visual languages.
Sayre Gomez has garnered recognition for his photorealistic paintings, which focus on fragments of the urban sprawl that is the Los Angeles landscape. His work questions concepts of history, memory, authenticity, and the ways in which we see and make meaning from our lived environment. Utilizing hyperreal techniques and processes such as airbrushing, stenciling, trompe l’oeil and allusions to the craft of Hollywood backdrops, Gomez’s paintings function as both documentary and semi-fictional representations of the city. His depictions lay bare the pervasive, ubiquitous grittiness of Los Angeles. The monotonous decaying strip malls marked by gridded signage, transform into forms of Found poetry. Play Boy North, End, Brickyard Beauty, Vortex. A solitary 5G cell tower seems already positioned as an obsolete relic. The bright light of a glowing McDonald’s sign sets an American contemporary consumer scene noir. These are not pictures of California ideals. These are images remembered, reconstructed, and repainted, hinting at a mythology not made from what we see, but from how we see.
Since moving from Osaka to Tokyo in his youth, Daido Moriyama has been documenting Shinjuku—the city he describes as “the first place that left him feeling completely at a loss”—for decades, beginning in the 1960s. The “city of desire” has undergone superficial transformations over the years, yet its fundamental character, the visceral core, and the experiences it offers remain unchanged. Rather than photographing Shinjuku as an object to construct a narrative, Moriyama engages with the city itself as a dynamic space where his own skin and the skin of the city fleetingly intersect. His lens gravitates towards elements that constitute the urban landscape—posters, power lines, motorcycles, show windows—capturing these fragments repeatedly and with intention. By reconstructing these fragmented images, he creates a distinct and unique vision that transcends conventional documentary practice.
Moriyama, who admits to being drawn to the “tingling” and chaotic energy of Shinjuku, captures the city’s representations and surfaces through his photography. This relentless pursuit of surface reality becomes the defining characteristic of his artistic practice.
Sayre Gomez (b. 1982, Chicago, IL, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Current museum exhibitions include “Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art Since 1968”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; “The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970 – Present”, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; “The Life of Things”, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands; and “Fresh Window: The Art of Display and Display Art”, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions include “Enterprise”, Sifang Art Museum, Jiangsu, China (2022) and “Renaissance Collection”, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy (2022), among others. Gomez’s works are held in multiple public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; and mumok, Vienna.
Daido Moriyama (b.1938, Osaka, Japan) lives and works in Tokyo. His main solo exhibitions include “William Klein + Daido Moriyama”, Tate Modern, London (2012); “On the Road”, The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2011); “Daido Retrospective 1965-2005 / Daido Hawaii”, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2008); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla (2007); Foam, Amsterdam (2006); Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris (2003); Fotomuseum Winterthur (2000); SFMOMA (1999, travelling to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). He is a recipient of The Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2019); the Lifetime Achievement award at the 28th Annual Infinity Awards from International Center of Photography, New York (2012); The Culture Award from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie, Cologne (2004); The Photographic Society of Japan Lifetime Achievement Award (2004); the Mainichi Art Award (2003) and the Japan Photo Critics Association Newcomer’s Award (1967).
Matt Black is a Paris-born, New York-based curator and the founder of REFLECTIONS, a platform exploring contemporary art through exhibitions, films, and collaborations. He launched Reflections as a film series with Nowness followed by his book Reflections: In Conversation with Today’s Artists (Assouline publishing,2016), released at the Whitney Museum. His exhibitions include “Reflections”, Gana Art Center, Seoul (2019), which included Rashid Johnson, Sterling Ruby, and Angel Otero; “Open Ended” (2020) & “Human/Nature” (2021), showcasing Hilary Pecis, Jenna Gribbon, Ludovic Nkoth, Katherine Bernhardt, and “I care because you do”, The Mass, Tokyo (2021), which included Dan Flavin, Sayre Gomez, and Arthur Jaffa. He curated “Stella/Sperling”, Charles Riva Collection, Brussels (2021), a duo exhibition with Frank Stella and Josh Sperling, and “Partly Fiction”, WOAW Gallery, Hong Kong (2022), featuring Pat Steir and Leelee Kimmel as well as multiple solo exhibitions for artists such as Jose Parla or Jammie Holmes.
