Dates: Jul 17 – Aug 14, 2010

Opening reception: Saturday,  Jul 17, 18:00 – 20:00

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Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce our forthcoming solo exhibition with Naoya Hatakeyama, “Tracing Lines / Yamate-Dori”. The series of works presented in this exhibition are comprised of photographs taken by Hatakeyama between 2008 and 2010 of Yamate-Dori, which spans 10km North to South through Tokyo from Ohashi intersection to Kumano-cho intersection.

Hatakeyama referrers to the same title, ‘Tracing Lines’ within his text for the catalogue published in conjunction with his solo exhibition ‘Draftsman’s Pencil’ (The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 2007). In the text he alludes to the notion that everything which exists within the metropolis is constructed upon the basis of some form of human resolve –even the most insignificant of fragments have been determined by human hands- and questions the possibilities of responding and living within such context.

Go and look for lines that would serve as metaphors in the city. Aren’t the photographs I take supposed to function as a “pencil of nature”? Therefore, I shall begin by retracing the lines in the city with this pencil. There, I should come across double lines which both the pencil drawn by human being and that by nature have traced. Somewhere along that double line, something that had been concealed until then may appear and allow us to find a clue to a metaphor, which would lead us to the entrance of our home. I shall use this pencil in search of that possibility.
Naoya Hatakeyama (Tracing Lines, Draftsman’s Pencil, The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, 2007)

Beneath Yamate-Dori runs the Yamate tunnel, an expressway newly opened to traffic in March of this year. Throughout the duration of Hatakeyama’s study construction work constantly took place on the ground, allowing the landscape to literally transform itself continually on a daily basis. The lines which are drawn by human hands shape the metropolis; akin to nature in which there exists a metamorphic flux of form and colour. Within the series of work presented in ‘Tracing Lines / Yamate-Dori,’ the lines, surfaces, and colours drawn within the metropolis differ from those conditions we perceive daily, and appear to pierce the heart of the great unknown which is the metropolis –intensely questioning the boundary between the metropolis and nature.

We will also present in the latter half of the gallery space, “Slow Glass / Tokyo”, a body of work which has been well received since its first release at G-tokyo last January. The series will also be on display at the Poznan Biennale from 4 September to 31 October, 2010.

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