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With inflation, high gas prices, the threat of direct conflict with Russia, not to mention the return of aviators and bell bottoms it is clear we are living in the 1970s again. In 1975 the lead editor of the Provoke Era publications, Takuma Nakahira (1938-2015) created a work for the Seventh Paris Biennale that in its own way foreshadowed the relationship many of us have to images today, quickly make and quickly post.
He brought no existing work to Paris but instead created from scratch a visionary photo-performance titled Circulation. Every day for one week, Nakahira strolled the streets of Paris, taking pictures with a handheld camera; every evening the artist rapidly developed his negatives and just as quickly made prints, which he then glued to the wall inside the biennale hall. To complete this project, Nakahira withheld himself from sleep. It is said in this state his photographic practice became like that of a Kyūdō archer, where muscle memory trumps the consciousness to make each arrow have a true release, resulting in a true target. Later in that same year, Nakahira destroyed almost all of his negatives and prints from the Provoke era. Only one of these projects still exists intact in any form: Circulation. This lone surviving project is also one of Nakahira’s greatest observations, that photography is in actuality performance art.
So as I wait to become sun baked dust and return to the primordial dirt, I will keep performing and making my pictures, in hopes of turning my head into a camera.
What else are we to do in the face of the unknown but record? See you next week, -niki
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