TOKYO 1992

Published by: Akio Nagasawa Publishing, 2023
Softcover, silkscreen-printed canvas cover
30.3 × 21.7 cm
78 pages
Language: English / Japanese
Limited edition of 350 copies. Artist Proof.
Signed by the artist
Condition: Fine. Well-preserved copy; clean interior and tight binding.

Tokyo 1992 is composed entirely of previously unpublished black-and-white photographs taken by Daido Moriyama in 1992, during a pivotal period following his relocation to Yotsuya after closing his gallery in Shibuya. What began as a concentrated exploration of his immediate surroundings quickly expanded into an obsessive traversal of Tokyo’s urban fabric its alleys, interstitial spaces, walls, shadows, stains, and overlooked corners.

The photographs reflect Moriyama’s relentless, instinctive engagement with the city. Grain, blur, contrast, and raw tonal shifts articulate a Tokyo that is less monumental than visceral textured, bodily, restless. Yotsuya, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro unfold not as mapped districts but as lived terrain, navigated through repetition and instinct.

Bound in a silkscreen printed canvas cover and issued in a limited edition of 350 copies, this Artist Proof carries added significance within the edition. Signed by Moriyama, it stands as both document and extension of his long-standing engagement with the photobook as primary medium.

As Moriyama reflects in his afterword, the city changes, yet its “body odor” and shifting light remain. The “old dog,” as he calls himself, continues to roam camera in hand driven by the same hunger for surfaces and shadows that defined his early work. Tokyo 1992 captures that appetite at full intensity: instinctive, unfiltered, enduring.