2017
Moriyama’s dive into urban life unfolded in the Pretty Woman series (2017) of photographs of the female presence in the streets. With a romantic title that referred to his passion for movies and Roy Orbison’s famous song, Moriyama depicted a chaotic and saturated universe filled with advertisements, products and anonymous figures. “I think those people who live in the world of pixels are more vivid than the people who are alive and I can actually see before me,”
The intense contrast, crispy clarity, a profusion of reflections and bright, vibrant colors were both an ode to consumption and a “encyclopedia of vulgarity”, enchanting and repelling the viewer in the face of a reality as seductive as it is artificial.
His images extrapolate from their frames, lining walls and ceilings to bring us into the world of advertising. Will there be life outside the images? Long before the collective life was smeared onto screens and monitors, Pretty Woman warned of our naivety when faced with images and the risk of being definitively netted.