Room

The grainy pictures of Daido Moriyama, with their frank views and jarring subjects, represent a pinnacle of rebellious accomplishment in art of the 1960s and 1970s. Moriyama excelled in those years at pictures bursting with energy, abandon, sexuality, and violence—in other words, the chaos of life in youthful, revolutionary times. A series of photographs of naked women, made in hotels or private rooms in 1969, cannot be termed voyeuristic but rather narcotic and experiential. Camera, crotch, and room are compressed into a single plane of confrontation. This daring image first appeared in the second of three issues of an influential Japanese photography journal with a one-word, English-language title: Provoke.