Katsushige Nakahashi's first solo show in the Bay Area consists of two large-scale photographic sculptural collages: one of the deck of the USS Missouri and one of a toy model, blown up to life-size proportions, of a Japanese Kaiten torpedo, the underwater equivalent of a kamikaze plane.  Four videos accompany the installations which give insights into the history  of the development and deployment of the Kaiten, the artist's process of photographic documentation and the assemblage of the sculptures. 



Nakahashi takes reproductive photography to its logical extreme; painstakingly deconstructing and photographing every millimeter of a surface and from it forms a sculptural simulacrum, each installation is composed of thousands of individual photographs, developed at consumer labs, sorted and taped together by teams of volunteers.  The Kaiten sculpture was commissioned by and assembled on site at SF Camerawork during the first two weeks of the exhibition by groups of veterans, Japanese-Americans and other community members.  This project is one in his "Zero" series which he plans to bring to a close in 2009 with a final exhibition in China.  The Zero pieces are life-size reconstructions of toy models, photographed in his studio in Japan and put together on site during the exhibition.   Each piece is constructed to be an ephemeral object, as fleeting as memory, and will be ritualistically set on fire at a site of historical importance.  When the exhibition here ends, the Kaiten piece will return to Japan where it will be burned.



Nakahashi's work is concerned with the documentation and reconstruction of surfaces, but that belies the layers of significance found in his work.  In each stage of the creation of the artwork there lies a ritual; from the extremely methodical, time-consuming, solitary and repetitive manner of documentation, to the communal assembling of the piece as a sort of jigsaw puzzle, to the ritualistic destruction of the piece by fire, each represents a stage in the construction of collective memory and history surrounding devastating events.  It is in the act of community participation that the artwork is at its most vital, feels the artist, as the volunteers interact with the piece, opening up a dialogue with each other, sharing their individual stories of wartime.  This notion of dialogue was especially present at the artist's reception held on January 15th, where a video conference was held with a survivor of the Kaiten torpedo missions, 83-year-old Okada Jun from Japan, and three American WWII veterans, who exchanged questions and experiences via satellite.  When one visits the exhibit, though the pieces themselves are fascinating to examine in detail, the true strength of the artwork is found in the shared history, community participation and the social aspects of remembrance and memorial.

--Natalie Stanchfield

(*Images, from top to bottom: Artist Reception January 15th 2008, image courtesy of Natalie Stanchfield.  Nakahashi chats with WWII veteran, image courtesy of Natalie Stanchfield.)