Artist Talk: Takashi Arai
VIEW EVENT DETAILS
In this presentation complementing the exhibition In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, Asia Society Texas Center welcomes artist Takashi Arai. To capture his images, Arai uses an early 19th-century photographic technique called daguerreotype. The technique, which involves exposing a polished silver plate to light, produces a single image that cannot be replicated. Arai will discuss his photographic process and how his daguerreotypes can serve as compact monuments, compelling us to remember.
Attendees will enjoy free admission the day of the program to the Louisa Stude Sarofim Gallery. The exhibition runs through January 1, 2016, and is open Tuesday-Friday, 11:00 am–6:00 pm, and Saturday-Sunday, 10:00 am–6:00 pm.
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About the Artist
Takashi Arai does not see daguerreotype as a nostalgic reproduction of a classical method; instead, he has made it his own personal medium, finding it a reliable device for storing memory that is far better for recording and transmitting interactions with his subjects than modern photography. Beginning in 2010, when he first became interested in nuclear issues, Arai has used the daguerreotype technique to create individual records—micro-monuments—of his encounters with surviving crew members, and the salvaged hull, of the fallout-contaminated Daigo Fukuryūmaru fishing boat, which was devastated by American nuclear testing in the Bikini Atoll. This project led him to photograph the deeply interconnected subjects of Fukushima, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Arai’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mori Art Museum, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, among other international venues. His works are held in the collections of the SFMOMA, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and Musée Guimet, among others.
This exhibition was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
This exhibition is made possible at Asia Society through major support from Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, Nancy C. Allen, Leslie and Brad Bucher, Nancy and Robert J. Carney, and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. Generous funding also provided by The Anchorage Foundation of Texas, The Clayton Fund, Ann Wales, and through contributions from the Friends of Exhibitions, a premier group of individuals and organizations committed to bringing exceptional visual art to Asia Society Texas Center.
