Naoya Hatakeyama - Natural Stories

The Japanese photographer is renowned for his beautiful, aesthetically powerful images of terrible powers - man-made or natural. Three series - one of explosions in an open-cast limestone mine, one of the Westfalen mine in Ahlen and one of the recent destructive tsunami in Japan - are included in the new exhibition of his work at Amsterdam's Huis Marseille.

Mine explosions

In 2001, Naoya Hatakeyama presented Blasts at Huis Marseille: a series of photographs of explosions in an open-cast limestone mine. In this exhibition, the photographer succeeded in combining harmonious photographic compositions with the violently destructive power of dynamite. Huis Marseille now revisits Blasts alongside two newer series by Hatakeyama.

Perfectly captured

Since the 2001 exhibition, beautiful and aesthetic images of the terrible powers we routinely deploy to shape nature to our will have become Hatakeyama's trademark. His photographs of the Westfalen mine in Ahlen (2003/2004) are a prime example: the moment in which a factory hall is blown up and hangs suspended in the air before losing its rugged shape forever is captured perfectly.

A vast expanse of nothing

It is Naoya Hatakeyama's ability to create precise, refined photographs of situations in which huge and destabilising forces are at work that makes his art unique. When he photographed the recent tsunami in Japan, and the destruction that this cataclysmic wall of water brought about in his own birthplace Rikuzentakada in Iwate, the results were images of a terrifying, vast expanse of emptiness.

The artist

Naoya Hatakeyama (1958) 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. The exhibition in Huis Marseille is organised in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo.