Measuring the duration of an event or an interval of time is invariably bound to memory, according to popular models of event perception. It seems we easily remember specific events for which we experience strong emotional imprints and forget nearly everything else. Gary Nakamoto's work offers a lasting emotional impression, allowing the viewer to experience life's events—from the spectacular to the most routine—without ever having participated in them.


Like Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nakamoto began by photographing film projections from first frame to last in a single, masterfully executed exposure. But while Sugimoto revealed the cumulative traces of the departed audience, the kinetic human presence in Nakamoto's work transforms the space from a hauntingly vacant container to a vital site of emotional experience.


After months of absorbing sin, sex and violence played out on the movie screens before him, Nakamoto turned to places of worship, perhaps seeking atonement in a more spiritual environment. Although the formal approach is similar, the emotional imprint of these images is markedly different. The light of the churches and temples bathes the worshippers, often rendering their traces calm and centered, in sharp contrast to the restless fidgeting of the moviegoers. The clarity of the relatively permanent structures in which people gather to experience these events provides a stage to play out their temporary existence.


Nakamoto continues his exploration of time and duration by documenting more intimate events. In his menage-a-trois series, couples watching a single television program share not only their living rooms with the viewer, but also a ghostly glimpse at their personal exchanges. " Judy at Elegant Nails" and "Chris, Combicycle Ex80, Naturalism in Fin de Siecle Literature" mark his entry into even more solitary moments.

While the task of capturing life's events from birth to death may seem impossible, Gary Nakamoto persists. His plans to document the moment of conception and the final hours before death promise to leave an impression that may well outlive us all.

  




"St. Augustine, Oakland 2002" (Detail)