Laconia Gallery Presents The Race: Tales in Flight
433 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
Laconia Gallery is run by the Laconia Artists Corporation (LAC), a non-profit 501(c)3 organization.
For this exhibition Laconia Gallery will be open Tuesday through Saturday, Noon to 4 PM.
Closed on Sundays and Mondays. Closed November 21, 22, 23 and 24, 2018.
There will be a Film Screening called “Living in the Story” with film director Lynn Estomin on November 11th at Laconia Gallery from 4 – 6 PM
There are Limited tickets that must be purchased in advance. Tickets will not be sold at the door.
[Patrick] Nagatani’s novel “The Race: Tales in Flight” is the story of the discovery of Supermarine Spitfire aircraft buried in Burma at the end of World War II. The aircraft are brought to Tokyo and transformed with new technology into state-of-the-art floatplanes. Fifteen women pilots are selected to participate in a trans-Pacific race from Tokyo to San Francisco.
The exhibition features a portrait of each plane flying into solitude. Each image must then be de-coded within terms of the larger subjects of challenges, gender, ethnicity, society, individuality, joy, technology, environmental disorder, the color of the plane, the color of the sky, and the history and magic of these concepts.
The Prologue of the novel sets up the logistics and story behind Keiko Kobahashi and introduces the diverse international group of women pilots. The “Training” chapter examines some of the concerns and interests of the women, as well as the camaraderie and respect that’s established between them. Each subsequent chapter is the pilot’s story while flying in the race.
The novel, in essence, is not about the race but the stories that each pilot has and the issues that they are dealing with in their lives. Most important is the catharsis that occurs in dealing with these issues as they fly alone in the vastness of earth space and clouds. They are in control in this tight little cockpit and there is a lot of time to think.
The outer and the inner is the essence of the novel. Outer vast physical space simultaneously exists with the inner psychological thinking of the pilots. Each pilot comes to terms with what she is dealing with. Catharsis hopefully occurs as the will to live and embrace the moment and contribute to humanity is realized.
[Patrick Nagatani passed away at home almost a year ago on October 27, 2017 from cancer at the age of 72. He lived to see his book completed and had a book signing at the Aluquerque Museum a week before his death.] He [was] first and foremost a long time visual artist who [had] recently challenged himself with creative writing. Much of his past work has evolved around storytelling and narrative fiction as photographic “fact”. He has dwelled in the land of fiction and magic with his images and now does so in this novel. Additionally, he is choreographing the creative writing of 12 other writers who are contributing to the novel. The images here will be at the beginning of each chapter of the pilots’ stories. They are meant to illustrate the novel with a feeling of flying spirit and magical space.
The choice of work and “The Race” images in this exhibition are meant to examine and develop a dialogue between the physical and the spiritual; something that Nagatani [had] in a daily conversation with his cancer. “The Race” images hope to form the connections in this dialogue of a Yin Yang nature.
– Liz Kay
Used with permission from Liz Kay, Andrew Smith Gallery, Tuscon, Arizona. Direct all inquiries on purchase of Patrick Nagatani’s work to the Andrew Smith Gallery.
A SPECIAL NOTE FROM PATRICK NAGATANI (about his show at the Andrew Smith Gallery in 2013)
“This exhibition comes at a crazy time for me. In dealing with metastatic cancer stage 4 for the 5 months (radiation and now heavy duty chemotherapy) I have been dealing with the realization of impermanence and have been introspective of the spiritual and the physical aspect of my life as it is. I have tried to be in the moment and totally enjoy what life has to offer. I have chemo brain (good for writing and playing blackjack) and chemo emo (cry and cuss a lot and mostly happy). So Andrew Smith has graciously invited me to have the inaugural show of his recent gallery for contemporary work in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has let me curate the show and I have chosen work that hopefully establishes a dialogue between the spiritual and the physical, the inner and outer, the mind and the body. I will be showing work from my Novellas series, 24 Buddhist tape-estries and images from my ongoing novel, The Race (developed with the help and expertise of Scott Rankin, Christopher Kaltenbach, and my visual technical collaborator and designer, Randi Ganulin.) Most of the work has never been exhibited in New Mexico. I hope to see you at this special and exciting exhibition. Namaste! December 2013.” – PN
Recently retired [in 2007] as a distinguished professor of photography at the University of New Mexico, Patrick Nagatani continue[d] to produce entertaining and thought-provoking photographic works that deal with various facets of the human condition. Along with tableaux artists Thomas Demand, Gregory Crewdson and Sandy Skoglund, Nagatani pioneered the Contemporary Constructed Photographic Movement in the late 1970s. He has been highly influential in developing a vocabulary of ideas and presentation based on directing, producing and constructing photographs, sets, sculptures, magazine and newspaper articles, models, and paintings as the subjects of his tableaus.
Nagatani design[ed] each photograph both with the creation of subject matter and by manipulating the scenes photographically by adjusting the camera’s narrow depth of field with forced perspective, a filmmaking technique used to create optical illusions, such as making objects appear smaller or larger, or appear far away when set space is limited. Having built and then photographed his sets, Nagatani print[ed] the images as Polaroid, Cibachrome or Ilfoflex photographs before destroying the sets.
With an innate sense of magical realism, Nagatani encompasses such diverse subjects as Buddhism, gender and ethnic injustice and paradoxes, the creation and history of nuclear modernity, Japanese-American heritage, history of photography, theories of media as the message, bodybuilding, color, light, healing, cancer, technology, magic, counting cards, family, favorite dogs and toys, falling out of the sky and flying into it. Each print is coded with multiple visual layers of clues and information, which lead to unrelated parallel strands of vision and emotion.The intensity of his subject matter is softened by the sheer beauty of the images and the humor he often brings to them. – Liz Kay
On our website we have shown 16 photographs. There are twenty photographs in the exhibition. We thought we wouldn’t spoil the ending for you here. Come see the exhibition Presented by Laconia Gallery 433 Harrison Avenue in the South End. For the duration of this show, the gallery will be open Tuesday through Saturday, Noon to 4 PM. Closed on Sundays and Mondays. Closed November 21, 22, 23 and 24, 2018.
