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15/12/2011

Naoya Hatakeyama / Siebe Swart

Huis Marseille, Amsterdam

Naoya Hatakeyama
Natural Stories

In 2001 the Japanese photographer Naoya Hatakeyama presented Blasts, a series of photographs of explosions in an open-cast limestone mine, in Huis Marseille. This exhibition made a strong impact, not least because the photographer succeeded perfectly in combining harmonious photographic compositions with the violently destructive power of dynamite. Since then, beautifully aesthetic images of the terrible powers we routinely deploy to shape nature to our will have become Hatakeyama’s trademark. His photographs of the Westfahlen mine in Ahlen (2003/2004) illustrate this very well. The moment that a factory hall is blown up and hangs suspended in the air before losing its rugged profile for ever is captured perfectly: it is like watching a living creature being brought slowly to its knees. Naoya Hatakeyama is unique in his ability to create such precise, refined photographs of moments at which such huge and destabilizing forces are at work. He also photographed the recent tsunami in Japan, and the destruction that this cataclysmic wall of water brought about in his own birthplace, Rikuzentakada in Iwate. These are images of terrifying emptiness: a vast expanse of nothing. All three themes are included in the exhibition Natural Stories. In collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo.

In brief: Naoya Hatakeyama (1958) was born in Iwate prefecture, Japan. He graduated from the School of Art and Design at the University of Tsukuba in 1981, and gained his Master’s degree there in 1984. He is one of Japan’s most prominent photographers and has also established an international reputation. In 2001 he represented Japan at the 49th Venice Biennale. His publications, which are artworks in themselves, include Limeworks, 1996; Atmos, 2003; Zeche Westfahlen, Ahlen, 2004; Two Mountains, 2006 (with Balthasar Burkhard); and Scales, 2007.

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Siebe Swart
Land of Air and Water
Aerial photographs of Dutch waterworks

After his Panorama Nederland project was published in 2007, Siebe Swart turned his attention to Dutch waterworks. As always, he chose the most appropriate photographic technique for this purpose. For the last few years he has photographed the Netherlands’ struggles with rising water from a helicopter. He has documented the reinforcement and streamlining of the country’s rivers, the ongoing development of the huge Delta Works, and the maintenance and management of the Dutch coast. What is often invisible from the ground is laid bare from the air: the never-ending battle with water has left scars all over the Netherlands. Old dike breaches; enclosed river arms, reopened to accord with the newest water management insights; newly and purposefully inundated areas; artificial peninsulas of sand and rubble; the Dutch landscape is visibly scarred everywhere. In no other country in the world is the historic struggle against encroaching water so clearly and emphatically visible from the air. And according to the photographer, to see this is to become obsessed by it.

In brief: Siebe Swart (1957, Amsterdam) studied chemistry for several years before deciding to switch to photography, first at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and then at the AKI in Enschede. Siebe Swart is particularly interested in built environments, and he documents the processes of change that continuously characterize them. Technically he is an all-rounder.

The new book by Siebe Swart on the Waterworks is titled Het Lage Land [The Low Land] and will be published by Erven de Toekomst on the occasion of the exhibition (december 2011). The publication will be available at the shop of Huis Marseille during the exhibition. For more information and images: www.siebeswart.nl

Image: Zeche Westfahlen I/II Ahlen, 5 November 2003, Naoya Hatakeyama, courtesy the artist

Opening: Friday December 16, 2011 at 5 pm

Huis Marseille
Keizersgracht 401 - Amsterdam
Opening hours: Tue-Sun 11 am - 6 pm
Admission € 5,– concession: € 3

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