Assignment 4: A Critical Essay
Nigel Monckton: 503003
Naoya Hatakeyama: Awesome – a Japanese sublime
Traditional Japanese aesthetics
does not invoke the concept of the sublime as espoused in various western
European sources and it scarcely features in Japanese photographic practise.
The work of Naoya Hatakeyama has consistently turned this tradition on its
head. Moreover he does this while extending the tradition of Japanese landscape
art and casting an analytical eye over man’s interactions with the environment
– most notably through mineral extraction and building. The end result is a
fusion - perhaps even a unique fusion - of Japanese and western practise and
tradition.
Biographical Background
Hatakeyama was born in 1958 in
Rikuzentakata, (Comstock, 2012) in the NE of Honshu,
Japan. He studied at the University of Tsukuba in 1981, and completed
post-graduate studies there in 1984. Currently he lives and works in Tokyo. (PrixPictet,
2012)
He is one of a relatively small
number of contemporary Japanese photographers to make a significant impact in
the West. Sample biographies, such as the one associated with the Prix Pictet, (PrixPictet,
2012)
suggest that he made his mark in Europe before making much impression in the
US. For example, he was invited to participate in the Rencontre d’Arles in 2003
(Foam, 2012)
and 2009 (EyeCurious, 2009) but his first solo
show in the States was not until 2012 (Comstock, 2012) . He was short-listed
in the Earth category in the 2012 Prix Pictet, and has received a number of
awards in Japan. (Wikipedia, 2013)
Hatakeyama has described himself
as a “scientist, and said that he uses photography to investigate the “outer
world” as he describes nature. (Joy of Giving Something LLC,
2005)
His work certainly displays a
clear interest in the interaction between man and his environment and takes the
format of a number of series which when seen together, as in the LA
Galerie website (LAGalerie, 2012) , clearly interweave
in their ideas. He has described his work as being about humans’ creations. (Joy of Giving
Something LLC, 2005)
In his most well-known works -
studies of limestone quarries and cement factories published as Lime Works in
2002 (Hatakeyama, 2002) - Hatakeyama talks
of the idea of the quarries being in some senses a negative of the cities built
from the excavated material. The subsequent progression of his work to detailed
images of cities and the spaces beneath them seems almost inevitable. His Ciel
Tombe series, and his high viewpoint studies of Tokyo can be seen as an
extension of his interest in Limestone quarrying – and excavations in general –
as can his Blast series of images of quarry explosions. In a further
development his Rivers series (Hatakeyama, 2011) focuses on the idea of taming nature
with the use of concrete.
Other works include Terrils, the hills
in coal mining regions of France (PhotoBookStore, n.d.) ; Atmos (LAGalerie,
2012) ,
photos of clouds and smoke; and shots of housing developments and cities (see,
for example Venice Biennale 2001 in LA Galerie (LAGalerie,
2012) .
Most recently he has produced a series of the remnants of his home town, which
was destroyed in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. He lost his mother in
the same disaster, and it is noticeable that the images he has produced are of
a different character to his previous work. (see later)
A key feature of all but his most
recent work is his invocation of the sublime to emphasise the impact of our
interaction with the environment. This is very unusual for a Japanese artist,
as there appears to be little or no tradition of the sublime in Japanese art. (Saito, 2002) (Richie, 2007) . The nearest
Japanese equivalent appears to be “yugen” which carries with it a sense of the
unknown but would not be described as awesome.
In a short video clip from the
SFMoMA website Hatakeyama conflates the Kantian idea of “too large” or “without
boundaries” with the original thought behind the vernacular term “awesome”. (Hatakeyama, 2012) . He also uses
Burke’s premise that beauty and the sublime are different – indeed he describes
the conventionally beautiful as “often not interesting”.
It is worth noting that the
sublime has, in the west, usually been associated with natural phenomenon – mountains,
great oceans, and natural disasters. Hatakeyama has turned this tradition on
its head and used man-made artefacts as the centre of his sublime.
Cultural Context
Traditionally Japanese art had
close associations with nature, with the themes of impermanence and change and
the idea of long apprenticeships studying the techniques and philosophy of the
art form. In spite of its cultural
modernity, and the wholesale rejection of certain traditions – e.g ink block
painting disappeared as a major form shortly after the introduction of
photography – many would say that the link with nature in particular is retained
within Japanese culture.
In The History of Japanese
Photography Fumio Nanjo is cited as arguing that a dilemma for contemporary
Japanese photographers is the balance between presenting an international face
without being regarded as an imitator and maintaining a cultural identity
without being trapped or stereotyped by tradition. (Nanjo, 1989) cited in (Friis-Hansen, 2003) . Friis-Hansen
suggests that one adopted solution to the dilemma has been the development of
the landscape/cityscape tradition of Japanese art to reflect the continuing physical
changes to Japan. Hatakeyama’s work sits squarely into this category with its
concentration on the development of cities and the consequential erosion of the
landscape itself – he is on record as saying “Mines and cities are like the
negatives and positives of a photograph”. (Hatakeyama, 2006)
In the same essay he discusses
the impact of man on the environment, and the idealized view of nature that
grows among those – like most in modern society – who live cut off from it. He
observes that even in the most idealized of photographs of nature man is still
present – at the edges of the frame, and behind the viewfinder. He highlights
the irony that if we try too hard not to participate our absence becomes a
political statement of itself.
In a discussion on the
development of Japanese photography Japanese critic Takeuchi (Takeuchi, 2008) identifies that “a number of
photographers came to the fore with series that stand at the crossroads between
art and photography”. She argues that they can be roughly divided into two
groups: one which uses photography as an intellectual tool to investigate the
world and the other as a tool to explore the “imaginary and transcend time and
space”. She identifies Hatakeyama as belonging to the former category.
I would argue that he is rather
different from prominent western landscape photographers. His images are
detached and objective – although unlike proponents of New Objectivity there is
no obvious attempt at typography. Neither is there a sense that they are taken
purely for their aesthetic impact - he is not chasing the light like a Cornish
or a Rowell.
On the converse, neither is his
work overtly campaigning. He is not seeking to justify conservation like Ansel
Adams, nor deliberately highlight the insidious effects of poorly controlled
industry - like say Burtinsky, or Misrach in Cancer Alley - for all that his
work majors on the impact of man on the environment. Nowhere in his writing and
interviews have I found a suggestion that he considers this impact should be
halted. Neither have I found any obvious political statements – in fact he has
directly refuted the suggestion that his Blast series is in any way related to
the events of 9/11 in the USA as some have suggested, describing the idea as a
“shock”. (Rawlings, 2008)
In line with his description of
himself as a scientist his work is much closer philosophically to a series of
investigations into the changes to the natural world wrought by man and time.
In this I sense the remnant of Japanese landscape tradition with its portrayal
of man playing a part in an impermanent and ever changing world.
Hatakeyama’s work and style
Hatakeyama’s style has been
variously described as “deadpan” (Cotton, 2009, p. 93) , “austere and
beautiful” (Friis-Hansen, 2003) and “calmly and
dispassionately show(ing) the beauty of form and colour” (Huis Marseille - Museum voor Fotografie,
2011) .
It has been suggested that he is
influenced by the New Topographics movement (Sauer-Thompson, 2009) although any
inspection of his work suggest that this is true only in the broadest of senses
– along with much other contemporary landscape photography.
More credence can be given to the
suggestion that he has been influenced by the works of Caspar Friedrich (Huis Marseille - Museum voor Fotografie, 2011) (Bradner, 2012) perhaps most
obviously because of his use of a similar colour palette and his use of
distance and perspective to invoke the sublime (Liebs, 2002) . See the
sightswithin website (Anon., 2007)
for examples of Friedrich’s works. Hatakeyama is also on record in the Liebs
article as saying that Friedrich is his favourite artist, and this does seem to
have been repeated regularly across many references to his work.
An examination of one or two
example images will allow us to test these assertions to some degree.
These two
images are typical of his Lime Works series:
There is a very different viewing
experience seeing these images on line – in both cases the print version has
considerably more impact. The first impression in both cases is of massive
scale. Both images emphasise this by having the subject run out of frame and
dramatic diagonals which encourage our eyes to the edges of the frame and
beyond. Couple this with very limited reference points to show true scale this
invokes – emphasises even – the idea that these objects are too large to easily
comprehend and conjures up the forces required to reduce a mountain to a hole
in the ground. Finally the colour palette - blues and browns - and the sombre
tones add a feeling of mystery. Comparison with Friedrich shows – at the very
least – a visual similarity.
This visual similarity is taken
even further in the Atmos series which features many pictures of mists and
vapours, and his Blast series which again features rich brown colours, clouds
(of rock and dust) and the implicit power of explosions to create drama.
In addition to the colour, tone
and scale there is clear sense of distance between the viewer and the object in
these images. Hatakeyama himself has talked about the idea of feeling cut off
from the world when taking these photos and this contributes to the feeling of
“otherness”. His frequent use of high viewpoints as in his aerial views of
Tokyo emphasises this sense. Again he frequently allows the subject to spill
outside of the frame to emphasise the scale of the subject and he has also
presented the cityscapes as large collages which emphasise the idea of their
scale even further as in the examples he displayed at the 49th
Venice Biennial. (Anon., 2001)
By way of contrast he has spent a
lot of time photographing below street level most notably in three series –
Rivers, Underground and Ciel Tombe. (LAGalerie, 2012)
Because of the crowded nature of
the Tokoyo cityscape he was forced to use his panoramic camera on its side in
Rivers producing a tall thin image with claustrophobic buildings above and on
both sides and a dark wet unknown below. The bleak formality of this series,
with its vertical panorama format and central horizon line, emphasises the idea
of nature under control. In nature limestone formations are frequently shaped
and moulded by water so there is, for me, a strong sense of irony in the idea
that we have dug the limestone out and used it to shape and mould rivers.
In Ciel Tombe and Underground he
is photographing in tunnels – frequently with a single strobe. Underground is
an extension of his Rivers series – he has simply ventured into the tunnels
whose mouths we see in Rivers, while Ciel Tombe is a separate piece of work, captured
beneath Paris which he describes as being about gravity. These series seem in
some ways to be set in opposition. Underground has darkness encroaching on all
sides emphasising the alien, while Ciel Tombe frequently has a blast of almost
heavenly light shining from the ceiling – as a result of the lighting technique
used. The piles of rock on the floor hark back to some of his quarry images.
The last series we will examine
here is the one of his home town Rikuzentakata taken after it was totally
destroyed by the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011. Hatakeyama’s
mother died in the tsunami, and his childhood home was destroyed.
Unsurprisingly this has had a major impact on his work. The personal impact can
be seen in a video interview he gave at the site of his mother’s home on the 1st
Anniversary of the tsunami. (Courdy, 2012)
The resulting photos are
considerably more personal than his previous work and by coincidence he is able
to compare them with a series he started prior to the tsunami – a before and
after. (Bohr, 2012) In spite of the
scale of the disaster the images do not, to me at least, invoke the same sense
of mystery or sublime. The wreckage fills the image and spills beyond its
edges, but at the same time it is at the photographer’s feet. There is a sense
of being there, rather than observing.
The two panoramas in the source
cited appear as prints stuck together– a far cry from the technical mastery on
display in his previous works. Even the manner in which has chosen to display
his images is different – clustered closely together like memories in a long
stream – rather than boldly displayed as large individual prints. (Wired, 2012) It is almost as if
the scale of the disaster and the personal tragedy has overwhelmed him. In the
same video he talks of his memories being washed away with his hometown, and
how his perception of himself as a scientist trying to understand nature has
been brought to a full stop.
Conclusion
Hatakeyama’s
work effectively combines the traditional Japanese artistic themes of nature
and change with the western aesthetic of the sublime, and as a result produces
which capable of speaking to audiences in both cultures. He exhibits a clear
and lasting interest in the interactions between man and nature, but unlike
many western photographers there is no suggestion that he is doing this for
political impact. Rather he has been interested in the scale of man’s
activities and they changes they have wrought as an intellectual exercise – he
has been an investigator.
There is every
indication that he would have continued in this vein but the Tohoku earthquake
has clearly had a major impact on his life and the direction of his
photography.
He is one of a
growing number of Japanese photographers who are beginning to make an impact on
the international scene. His increasing impact is underscored by his first US
solo exhibition in 2012 and his frequent appearances in Europe.
How his work
and his impact will develop in the light of the personal tragedy he has
suffered, alongside many thousands of his countrymen, remains to be seen.
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