Décalage

Opening reception, with Alfredo Jaar:
Saturday, September 17, from 4 to 7pm

Circulation [Gauthier, Kauter, Nagasawa] is honoured to present 'Décalage, Tribute to Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015)', an unexpected group exhibition with the generous participation of Alfredo Jaar, Daido Moriyama and Lawrence Weiner.

Renowned for his landmark book 'For a Language to Come' (1970) and his leading role in the Japanese 'Provoke' movement (1968-69), critic and artist Takuma Nakahira elaborated an existential practice of photography and a renewal of the language. At the turn of the 70's, he extended his research in the field of photography to follow the tracks of conceptual art. In 1976, he created a piece entitled 'Décalage' [Shift] in the former exhibition space ADDA in Marseille, France. 'Décalage' was an in-situ photographic installation in which Nakahira followed his own instructions: photograph from ceiling to ground an angle in a given gallery space with an 80 cm distance, then recreate that angle using the printed photographs 50 cm on its side.

For the first anniversary of Nakahira's death, Alfredo Jaar created an instructional piece entitled 'Reflections (for Takuma Nakahira)' consisting of two vertical columns of mirrors placed in the corner of the exhibition space, from ceiling to ground. With this new work, Alfredo Jaar recalls Nakahira's 1976 gesture, and creates both a reflection and an aperture of the space itself.

A pioneer of conceptual art, Lawrence Weiner created in 1968 his famous instructional work entitled 36"x36" Removal to the lathing or support wall of plaster or wallboard from a wall'. The work is currently housed in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art which exceptionally loaned the work to Circulation [Gauthier, Kauter, Nagasawa] for the purpose of this homage to Takuma Nakahira.

Nakahira's companion for decades, Daido Moriyama concludes this tribute with an intimate homage: a small portrait of his dear friend taken in 1986 in Room 801, Moriyama's personal exhibition space located in the Shibuya area of Tokyo where he invited numerous friends and artists.

Takuma Nakahira, whose oeuvre is largely yet to be discovered, was also the author of numerous crucial essays on photography. He spent his life challenging the photographic medium before suffering from a long disease to which he sadly succumbed a year ago, on September 1st, 2015. His contribution to the arts is so immense that we chose to name our Paris-based project space Circulation [Gauthier, Kauter, Nagasawa] after 'Circulation [Date, Place, Events]', a performance and installation realised by Takuma Nakahira in Paris in 1971.

The exhibition 'Décalage, Hommage à Takuma Nakahira (1938-2005)' is made possible through the generous support of the Museum of Modern Art de New York, the Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation, and the galleries Akio Nagasawa, Jean-Kenta Gauthier et Kamel Mennour.