Sometimes it drives me crazy to think of all the outstanding, groundbreaking art that people make which will never see the light of day, never be featured in an exhibition, never be appreciated, never be seen. Sometimes it’s because the person who made the art doesn’t care to share it with others, and toils their days on poems or paintings or photographs, creating what they don't realize are masterpieces, and then dies. Sometimes it’s because the person doesn’t know how to get their work noticed by the right people. Sometimes (oftentimes) it’s because the gatekeepers to artistic spheres are bigots. Or maybe the person did manage to “make” it, to publish the book, to show the painting, to perform the opera—-but no one noticed, or they didn’t notice for long enough (Kafka comes to mind; Hurston; Dickenson. The list is long.) How many other Kafkas, Hurstsons, and Dickensons are there out there?
When I’m feeling morose, I think about what might have happened to the world, or at least to mine, had no one ever taken a risk on publishing the early work of my favorite artists. One of them is Daido Moriyama. Moriyama is a Japanese photographer whose extraordinary work grew out of the post-World War II societal upheaval; he’s had shows at the Tate Modern and MoMA, received the photo world’s highest accolades. But what if no one had taken the chance on him before he achieved all those things? What might my life look like without the influence of Daido Moriyama? I shudder to think. I search for details about his early life, try to find out who it was who took that chance on him. A name comes up: Shōji Yamagishi. A photography critic and editor, Yamagishi published Moriyama—-and dozens of other then-unknown, unconventional photographers—in the profoundly influential Camera Mainichi magazine which he edited from 1963 to 1978.
I have two words for you, Shōji Yamagishi: Thank you.
-Eugenie Dalland