Photographing the Overlooked: Noritaka Minami on His“California City, California” Series and His Photography Practice
Three black and white landscape portraits from the California City, California series (2017) were apart of the group show Material Intentions at FLXST Contemporary in 2020.
PLEASE DESCRIBE HOW YOU ARRIVED AT PHOTOGRAPHY? WHAT ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY DREW YOU TO IT?
As an undergraduate student, I focused primarily on painting and printmaking. Photography didn’t become part of my practice until graduate school. But even before I started to make photographs as “art,” I was drawn by how photographers used the medium to examine architectural spaces, especially overlooked things. The first-ever photobook that caught my attention was Tsuzuki Kyoichi’s Tokyo Style. Another book that left an impression on me early on is Rufina Wu and Stefan Canham’s Portraits from Above: Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities. I became interested in how the photographers employed photography in these two works. The influence is evident in a project like 1972.
THE THREE BLACK AND WHITE PIECES IN THE GROUP SHOW MATERIAL INTENTIONS AT FLXST IS PART OF A LARGER SERIES CALLED CALIFORNIA CITY, CALIFORNIA (2017). THE LANDSCAPES ARE BARREN, EXCEPT FOR THE OUTLINES OF STREETS, A FEW TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES. IF WE’RE LUCKY, A NONDESCRIPT BUILT STRUCTURE CAN BE SPOTTED. DESCRIBE THE GENESIS OF THE PROJECT AND THE ATTRACTION TO WHAT APPEARS TO BE A FAILED HOUSING DEVELOPMENT.
There was a proliferation of planned communities in the post-war United States that dramatically altered the landscape and the way people lived, particularly in Southern California. One of the most famous and successful examples from this era is the city of Irvine. I became fascinated with California City because it is another example of a planned community from this period. However, it is now mostly forgotten even to the people living in the state that it is named after. It failed to meet the original grandiose ambition of the real estate developer Nathan Mendelsohn and the aggressively promoted idyllic image that he sold to the public through mass media.
The endless miles of paved streets without any homes is a vivid reminder of the vision that was projected onto the landscape by Mendelsohn and remains unfulfilled to this date. In a way, the site sits suspended in time: clearly designed to host a future city, yet there is no certainty if that city will ever materialize in reality. The development became known for making unsubstantiated claims such as the land having enough concentration of water wells in the entire Mojave Desert to create a “water-rich” wonderland. I think, California City is an important case study that highlights the limits that urban development faces in harsh locations such as the Mojave Desert, especially as the West Coast faces the effects of climate change.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE A DOCUMENTARY FEEL. INTERESTINGLY, THE LANDSCAPE AND HOW THE EMPTY STREETS CREATE SPATIAL PATTERNS ALSO EVOKE ABSTRACT SENSIBILITIES. “DOCUMENTARY ABSTRACTION,” FOR LACK OF A BETTER TERM, IS QUITE AN OXYMORON! HAVE YOU REFLECTED ON THIS PARTICULAR TENSION IN THE AESTHETICS OF YOUR PORTRAITS?
I intended this series as a documentary project on California City. Broadly speaking, the images are “straight photographs” that depict the landscape’s visual appearance without any overt manipulation. However, I think there are subtle details in how I photographed this particular landscape. These details are crucial in making the view not readily apparent to the viewers. I shot the photographs from an aerial vantage point without the sky and the horizon line visible within the frame. This approach flattens the sense of space and denies a figure-ground relationship to make it immediately legible as a landscape. Also, the extensive city grid that is mostly absent of structures doesn’t provide the context to establish a sense of scale, allowing viewers to mistake the streets as graphic lines. The state of the landscape and how it looks evoke a type of abstract sensibility within the photographs. Moreover, this development itself remains a type of abstraction as it perpetually proposes a future city that no one will (most likely) ever build.
THERE IS UNDOUBTEDLY A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA CITY AND ITS FAILURE TO THRIVE AS A VIABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. WHAT ROLE DOES HISTORY PLAY IN YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE?
Research on the history of a place is integral to my art practice. Knowing the locations’ histories allows me to develop an understanding of how to navigate those spaces. It also enables me to develop strategies for that specific art project. The visual languages that I employed in 1972 and California City, California are very different because the strategy that I took for each project responds to the history of that particular place and its present state. In California City, California series I intentionally wanted to use a photographic language that mirrored the harshness of the landscape and countered the idyllic image that the would-be developers promoted. I wanted to create photographs that deny any possibility of depicting this Western landscape in a romantic manner. Those are some of the reasons I decided to use high-speed black and white film with a pronounced graininess.
YOU SEEM TO BE INTERESTED IN BUILT ENVIRONMENTS. THE CALIFORNIA CITY, CALIFORNIA SERIES FEELS LIKE A MORE EXPANSIVE EXPLORATION OF HUMAN HABITATION (IN ALL THEIR SUCCESSES OR FAILURES) FOUND IN YOUR MONOGRAPH 1972, Nakagin Capsule Tower IN WHICH YOU EXPLORE THE INTERIOR SPACES OF KISHO KUROKAWA’S NAKAGIN CAPSULE TOWER IN JAPAN. IS THERE A COMMON THREAD THAT RUNS THROUGH BOTH PROJECTS? WHAT ABOUT THE HUMAN CAPACITY TO BUILD THESE TYPES OF ENVIRONMENTS DRAWS YOU TO PHOTOGRAPH THEM?
The construction of the Nakagin Capsule Tower in 1972 is inextricably connected to the 1970 World Exposition held in Osaka, Japan. The overreaching theme that the event promoted was an image of a future in which “progress and harmony for mankind” would be achieved through continued economic growth and technological innovations. Although the Nakagin Capsule Tower and California City development are two different architectural projects situated at very different locations, they resonate similarly as products of an overly optimistic outlook towards the future that emerged from the mid-20th century. Both sites’ designs were based on harnessing technology and industry for expansion into spaces previously uninhabited by man. Over time, it becomes possible to look back at each of these sites with a new perspective. I am interested in using photography to examine how these visions of the future appear in retrospect and also understand the actual future that arrived in reality.
AS YOU KNOW, WE ARE LIVING THROUGH STRANGE TIMES AS THE COVID-19 GLOBAL PANDEMIC SHOWS NO SIGNS OF ENDING. HAS COVID-19 AFFECTED YOUR PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE OR PERHAPS INFLUENCED YOUR THINKING ABOUT FUTURE PROJECTS?
In the essay that art historian Ken Yoshida wrote for my photobook on the Nakagin Capsule Tower, he makes an important observation that the architectural movement Metabolism, which gave birth to the iconic building, was founded on the premise of finding more effective means of sheltering people in the aftermath of World War II. Architectural critic Noboru Kawazoe, who was instrumental in organizing the Metabolism, proposed a sanctuary that would shield the population from a nuclear disaster. Kisho Kurokawa’s career began with a speculative proposal called “Agricultural City” that he designed in response to Typhoon Vera in 1959, which resulted in more than 5,000 deaths. Even though Metabolism is often associated with utopian images, the specters of recent catastrophes and future threats influenced the movement.
I think this part of Metabolism’s history is very interesting and is relevant for me in thinking about this pandemic and other crises related to society and the environment. The current situation has reinforced the idea that architecture could be an expression of a shelter against real and imagined threats. I wonder about the types of architecture that will result from this period of uncertainty in the United States and the broader global society. What kind of materials and designs will be employed in creating new demarcations of spaces? I think the challenge is to carefully observe and document changes that may not necessarily be apparent but are, in fact, significant.
WILL WE GET TO SEE NEW PROJECTS FROM YOU LATER IN THE YEAR FOR YOUR SOLO SHOW AT FLXST? IF SO, CAN YOU GIVE US A GLIMPSE OF WHAT WE MIGHT GET TO SEE?
The show will consist of photographs taken in 2019 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, that document the current state of the steel lattice towers that were first erected by the French as utility poles during the early twentieth century to facilitate the development of the Indochinese Union. The project examines these overlooked remnants of French colonialism in the contemporary landscape of Ho Chi Minh City. The structures represent the region’s historical trajectory as it evolved from one of the centers of the French colonial empire in Southeast Asia to the economic engine of an independent and developing nation attempting to merge socialism with global capitalism.
NORITAKA MINAMI is an artist based in Chicago. Minami uses photography to examine spaces that exist as anachronisms in the landscape and are overlooked for their significances in understanding contemporary society. He is interested in the photographic medium’s potential to not only document the physical appearance of sites but also explore and reflect on the underlying presence of histories and ideologies of those spaces by the way they are transformed into still images.
He received an M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine, and a B.A. in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Santo Foundation, and Center for Cultural Innovation. In 2015, Kehrer Verlag published his monograph titled 1972 — Nakagin Capsule Tower, which received the 2015 Architectural Book Award from the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany. Solo exhibitions of his works have been held at Kana Kawanishi Gallery, SFO Museum, USC Roski School of Art and Design, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, UC Merced Art Gallery, and Griffin Museum of Photography. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the Aperture Foundation, Somerset House, Photo Basel, Las Cienegas Projects, New Wight Gallery, and Kearney Street Workshop. Minami’s works are held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, and Center for Photography at Woodstock.
He is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Loyola University Chicago. He has also taught photography at Harvard University, Wellesley College, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, UC Berkeley, and UC Irvine.
FLXST Contemporary is a contemporary fine arts and photography gallery and an arts incubator in Chicago. It showcases highly-evocative and uncompromising artwork by emerging and mid-career artists; and it supports the creation and exhibition of new artwork across visual mediums. FLXST Contemporary works with and represents mainly diasporic im/migrant artists, LGBTQ-identified artists, and artists of color based in Chicago and in other parts of the country.
FLXST Contemporary exhibited the group show Material Intentions from August 1 to August 30, 2010. The show included Alexander Hernandez, Renluka Maharaj Noritaka Minami, Moises Salazar, Cristina Victor
