I went to Printing Show—TKY at Aperture Gallery last Friday afternoon in order to do a feature for DART. Deep into the process of streamlining my library, I had no intention of participating in the creation of another book, but after about fifteen minutes observing the high energy, highly focused work going on, I caved in and bought one of the three remaining tickets, and returned the next day.

Printing Show is a recreation of Daido Moriyama's 1974 performance of the same name, which took place in a Tokyo storefront and featured images from a trip he had made to New York in 1971. Following the format of the original performance as closely as possible, Printing Show features photographs made by Moriyama in Tokyo over the past 15 years. It was organized by Ivan Vartanian of Goliga, Tokyo, who was everywhere at the gallery, supervising and shepherding all aspects of the production. 

As was done forty years ago, all of the photocopying and silk-screen printing took place as a performance in the gallery space. On Friday and Saturday, visitors to Aperture Gallery found Moriyama stationed in the center of the whirlwind, supervising the duplication of his photographic prints on a photocopier and signing pre-numbered colophons for each of the 500 limited edition books being produced.

Second from left above; Ivan Vartanian. All photos: Peggy Roalf.

The process of selecting 20 spreads from a menu of 52, which are mounted on the gallery walls, was mind bending. First of all, you had to picture in your mind what image would be presented when each of the gatefold pages are turned. Then, selection and sequencing had to be done through the mind’s eye, rather than through the process of laying out and rearranging pages on the floor. When I finally edited out the extra three spreads that somehow got into my list, it was a relief to choose between the two cover designs available.

The limited edition photobook that resulted from this process in 1974, Another Country—New York, has since become a rare collector's item. In the 2011 recreation, 300 of the 500 limited edition books were made by visitors who bought tickets for the performance/production. The remaining 200 copies will be produced in the gallery while the work is on view and available through Aperture’s limited editions program.

Printing Show—TKY, the exhibition, continues through November 1^2th at Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27^th Street, 4^th Floor, NY, NY. Note: the show might be extended so please check with the gallery: 212.505.5555.

Daido Moriyama has been publishing and exhibiting his photography since the late 1960s, with a bibliography of over 300 monographs to his name. A major retrospective, Daido Moriyama: Stray Dog, originated in 2000 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and subsequently toured internationally to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Japan Society in New York, Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and numerous other venues. He is a recipient of the Cultural Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie. Exhibitions include a major retrospective, On the Road, presented at the Osaka National Museum of Art from June to October 2011, and William Klein/Daido Moriyama at Tate Modern from October 2012 to January 2013.