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Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant - NHKBS-TV, Tokyo, Lunar Partial Eclipse from the series 2011 Phenomena: Phenomena, Chaos, Clouds, Sun, Moon
Kawada Kikuji (Japanese, born in 1933)
2011
Medium/Technique
Photograph, pigment-based inkjet print
Dimensions
Image: 36.6 x 51.2 cm (14 7/16 x 20 3/16 in.)
Sheet: 42 x 59.4 cm (16 9/16 x 23 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 42 x 59.4 cm (16 9/16 x 23 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Sophie M. Friedman Fund
Accession Number2015.2956
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia, Contemporary Art, Photography
ClassificationsPhotographs
DescriptionJapanese, born in 1933
At night, I secretly try to hear the voices of those who died in that moment. A moment in a photograph is different from a moment in words. It doesn’t have ears, and it’s one hundredth or thousandth of an instant, so you can’t see it. There are lots of things you need to look at and listen to, all wrapped up in the time before and after the shutter snaps, but if you don’t pay attention to them you don’t see anything.
Throughout his career Kikuji Kawada has reminded Japan of the fraught relationship between the nation and the nuclear age. In the 1960s, when he first produced his celebrated photobook The Map in black-and-white, and today in works using digital technology, Kawada reveals moments of catastrophe and chaos in the everyday. After 3/11, Kawada felt no need to travel to Tohoku. The tension and anxiety were all around him in Tokyo; he could feel the unease in the somber city skyline, the ivy creeping on trees in the forest, and the images on the news. Kawada is fully aware that he is creating images that can be characterized as sublime. Indeed, they simultaneously proclaim beauty and originate from fear and pain.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant—NHK BS-TV, Tokyo, Lunar Partial Eclipse from the series 2011 Phenomena: Phenomena, Chaos, Clouds, Sun, Moon, 2011
Pigment-based inkjet print
Courtesy of Photo Gallery International
At night, I secretly try to hear the voices of those who died in that moment. A moment in a photograph is different from a moment in words. It doesn’t have ears, and it’s one hundredth or thousandth of an instant, so you can’t see it. There are lots of things you need to look at and listen to, all wrapped up in the time before and after the shutter snaps, but if you don’t pay attention to them you don’t see anything.
Throughout his career Kikuji Kawada has reminded Japan of the fraught relationship between the nation and the nuclear age. In the 1960s, when he first produced his celebrated photobook The Map in black-and-white, and today in works using digital technology, Kawada reveals moments of catastrophe and chaos in the everyday. After 3/11, Kawada felt no need to travel to Tohoku. The tension and anxiety were all around him in Tokyo; he could feel the unease in the somber city skyline, the ivy creeping on trees in the forest, and the images on the news. Kawada is fully aware that he is creating images that can be characterized as sublime. Indeed, they simultaneously proclaim beauty and originate from fear and pain.
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant—NHK BS-TV, Tokyo, Lunar Partial Eclipse from the series 2011 Phenomena: Phenomena, Chaos, Clouds, Sun, Moon, 2011
Pigment-based inkjet print
Courtesy of Photo Gallery International
Provenance2011, consigned by the artist to Photo Gallery International, Tokyo, Japan; 2015 sold by Photo Gallery International to the MFA. (Accession Date: September 24, 2015)
CopyrightKawada Kikuji, courtesy of L. Parker Stephenson Photographs