Katabasis
Patrick Nagatani
Created : 1991
Donated : 1998
Medium : Lithograph
Dimensions: 21 inx26 in
Located: 2nd Floor,Northwest Hallway
Born in Chicago in 1945, 13 days after the bombing of Hiroshima, it is not ironic that Nagatani’s body of work is an exploration of nuclear issues. Nagatani grew up in Los Angeles and taught photography in the Los Angeles area, including the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1987, Nagatani joined the photography faculty at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where he began work on his series “Nuclear Enchantment.” This series delves into New Mexico’s relationship to nuclear history through photographic sites of testing, accidents and waste management. The works incorporate a layering technique to elevate photo-dramas of fact and metaphor utilizing cutouts, photographs, intense color and printed imagery. “I like to arrange things”, he explains. “I make pictures, because I’m not a writer.” His lithograph, “KATABASIS,” presents this kind of layering process, assembling a tableau of faces, suggesting a kind of gradual descent, whether it be moral, ethical or physical.
Nagatani’s prevailing intent is to convey the conflict of ideologies, the clash between cultural fortitude and scientific faith.
His staged commentaries reflect the ironies of heritage/culture bracing against, and, at times, embracing, the forces and infiltration of technology.
According to Nagatani, his works examine “the ways in which photography creates, recreates or supports a particular history. I want to consider what we accept as evidence and why.” He offers an alternative past that questions the assumption that time is linear, often challenging the role of photographs as proof, as truth. His works usually incorporate a sense of irony, disregarding the traditional role of photography as an objective documentation of reality.
Nagatani taught at the University of New Mexico for 20 years before retiring in 2007. His work is in collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Denver Art Museum, the International Center for Photography in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Nagatani has exhibited internationally since 1976.
It continues to be the goal of the Capitol Art Foundation to build a permanent collection of masterworks that reflects New Mexico’s rich and diverse cultural and artistic tradition.
