Date, Place, Events,
Takuma Nakahira is a writer, critic, political activist and photographer who radically changed Japanese visual culture. He has brought his famed photographic collection, ‘Circulation: Date, Place, Events’ to the United States for the first time.
Nakahira’s black and white images are purposely blurry and grainy, allowing elements of uncertainty and expression into his work. Born in Tokyo in 1938, he played a significant role in the formation of Japan’s photographic history of social realism.
‘Circulation: Date, Place, Events’ was first exhibited in 1971 as part of the Seventh Paris Biennale. Each day, for seven consecutive days Nakahira photographed, developed and exhibited approximately one hundred photographs. The photographs are random glimpses from Nakahira’s daily activities in Paris, including strangers’ faces, produce stands, subway platforms, street posters and even his breakfast setting.
Developing the photographs each night, Nakahira exhibited them without omission the following day. Once the walls of the exhibition space were crowded with photographs, the artist spread them onto the floor. The resulting project presented a limited reality dictated by guidelines of “date,” “place” and “events.”
A few years later, in a dramatic break with his past work, Nakahira burned most of the negatives and prints of his earlier work. For unknown reasons, the negatives of ‘Circulation: Date, Place, Events’ were preserved.
‘Circulation: Date, Place, Events,’ is on display until Friday 12 July at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, US.
