NAOYA HATAKEYAMA
Much like an archeologist, Naoya Hatakeyama excavates urban and industrial sites in order to uncover the true condition of human civilization. His photographic works frequently express the past, present and future of city life in series. These streams of images, while conveying no sense of narrative, create a highly meditative mood, capturing the tension between the fleeting and the eternal, and the life and-death relationship between man and nature.
In River Series (1993-94) Hatakeyama photographed a succession of urban river scenes. Through his ingenious use of camera angles, he made the river and the buildings on its banks merge at their point of intersection into a seamless horizontal line across all the pictures. The towering buildings with the river at their feet seem to stand as a declaration of humanity's determination to conquer the heavens. Yet the inverted image of the high-rises reflected on the surface of the water demonstrates the fact that civilization is simply another part of nature.
Lime Hills (1986-91) and Lime Works (1991-94) portrayed, respectively, a lime deposit that had been exploited and irrevocably altered by man, and a lime factory that squatted on the side of a mountain like a giant beast. Resembling bizarre scenes from a science-fiction film, these pictures show how humanity has used technology to overcome nature, but in Underground (1999-2000), a series of dark subterranean aqueducts imitates nature's forms and structures, strengthening the symbiosis between man and the natural environment.
In the photographic series, Zeche Westfalen I/II, Ahlen Kohlenwäsche, 5 November 2003 (2004), and Zeche Westfalen(2), 2003 (2003) Hatakeyama captured the demolition through explosives of two enormous buildings in Germany, which had become redundant due to a slump in the mining industry in this area. These works resonated with the earlier Blast (1995), a series of split second images of mineworkers exploding lime: the buildings being blasted into dust were themselves constructed from limestone acquired through the explosion of quarries. This cyclical aspect sums up the thematic continuity that flows between Hatakeyama's works.-A.C.
http://www.lagalerie.de/lagalerie_english_deutsch/l_a_galerie_artists/hatakeyama_english/hatakeyama_english.html
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=FB70109C-EC79-4801-894C8ADE136BBF2B
http://www.fotonet-south.org.uk/yota/hata.html
http://www.takaishigallery.com/html/artists_profile/a_nh_Naoya_HATAKEYAMA.html
http://www.takaishiigallery.com/html/artists_profile/Naoya_HATAKEYAMA/
http://www.schaden.com/book/HatNaoAtm03244.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/7933/Naoya_Hatakeyama.html
http://www.artnet.com/event/58289/Naoya_Hatakeyama_Atmos.html
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistinfo/artist/1570
Born 1958 in Iwata, Japan
Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan
Zeche Westfalen (2) II, 2003
Color photograph
60 x 76 cm (print 50 x 65,5 cm)
Courtesy LA Galerie, Frankfurt and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
Color photograph
60 x 76 cm (print 50 x 65,5 cm)
Courtesy LA Galerie, Frankfurt and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
Much like an archeologist, Naoya Hatakeyama excavates urban and industrial sites in order to uncover the true condition of human civilization. His photographic works frequently express the past, present and future of city life in series. These streams of images, while conveying no sense of narrative, create a highly meditative mood, capturing the tension between the fleeting and the eternal, and the life and-death relationship between man and nature.
In River Series (1993-94) Hatakeyama photographed a succession of urban river scenes. Through his ingenious use of camera angles, he made the river and the buildings on its banks merge at their point of intersection into a seamless horizontal line across all the pictures. The towering buildings with the river at their feet seem to stand as a declaration of humanity's determination to conquer the heavens. Yet the inverted image of the high-rises reflected on the surface of the water demonstrates the fact that civilization is simply another part of nature.
Lime Hills (1986-91) and Lime Works (1991-94) portrayed, respectively, a lime deposit that had been exploited and irrevocably altered by man, and a lime factory that squatted on the side of a mountain like a giant beast. Resembling bizarre scenes from a science-fiction film, these pictures show how humanity has used technology to overcome nature, but in Underground (1999-2000), a series of dark subterranean aqueducts imitates nature's forms and structures, strengthening the symbiosis between man and the natural environment.
In the photographic series, Zeche Westfalen I/II, Ahlen Kohlenwäsche, 5 November 2003 (2004), and Zeche Westfalen(2), 2003 (2003) Hatakeyama captured the demolition through explosives of two enormous buildings in Germany, which had become redundant due to a slump in the mining industry in this area. These works resonated with the earlier Blast (1995), a series of split second images of mineworkers exploding lime: the buildings being blasted into dust were themselves constructed from limestone acquired through the explosion of quarries. This cyclical aspect sums up the thematic continuity that flows between Hatakeyama's works.-A.C.
http://www.lagalerie.de/lagalerie_english_deutsch/l_a_galerie_artists/hatakeyama_english/hatakeyama_english.html
http://www.the-artists.org/ArtistView.cfm?id=FB70109C-EC79-4801-894C8ADE136BBF2B
http://www.fotonet-south.org.uk/yota/hata.html
http://www.takaishigallery.com/html/artists_profile/a_nh_Naoya_HATAKEYAMA.html
http://www.takaishiigallery.com/html/artists_profile/Naoya_HATAKEYAMA/
http://www.schaden.com/book/HatNaoAtm03244.html
http://www.artnet.com/artist/7933/Naoya_Hatakeyama.html
http://www.artnet.com/event/58289/Naoya_Hatakeyama_Atmos.html
http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistinfo/artist/1570