Dates: Jun 24 – Jul 22, 2006

Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce our forthcoming solo exhibition with Naoya Hatakeyama,”Zeche Westfalen I/II Ahlen; this marks the artist’s 3rd exhibition with the gallery. The present exhibition consists of a series of a photographic works shot in Ahlen, an ex-coral mine town in the southeastof Munster, Germany, between October 2003 and February 2004.

“Could you take a photograph of a building that is scheduled to be tore down?” The request sounds like : “Could you take the portrait of a person who will die soon?” Just as a portrait of a deceased person is needed for people to reminisce about that person, an architectural photograph is needed to reminisce about a building which no longer exists. Another sense of nostalgia always comes to mind for the photographer who takes such a photograph ; the nostalgia for the original role of photography, “to serve to the memory of human beings,” requested simply of him. He does not know why, but it makes him feel nostalgia for this.

“Record” is always based on the premise of a vision that comes from the future. The photograph is like a boat carried to the future endlessly even if the vision one sees comes from the past. I think as this way; “Record” belongs to the future, not to the past. Otherwise I cannot understand the reason why I always have a feeling of hope on my fingertip when I release the shutter.

Naoya Hatakeyama

Publication : “Zeche Westfahlen I/II Ahlen: Naoya Hatakeyama
Nazraeli Press, 2006, hard cover, 80pp, full color, 28 x 33cm,
Please conract the gallery for further details.

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