Hatta Masaharu

滝への新しい小径 / a new path to the waterfall

アメリカの小説家、レイモンド・カーヴァの晩年の詩集のタイトルを冠した八田政玄の写真作品は、奇妙な気配に包まれています。茫然としたまま滝を見つめるもの、滝に背を向けたままぼんやりと視線を虚空に投げ出すもの、何かを求めるように水しぶきに手を伸ばすもの、……。彼らはまるで、滝というものの存在を知らない未来からきた旅人のようでもあります。かつてあったとされる滝を、初めて目の当たりにした、時の旅人。八田の作品は、わたしたちの生きている時間の流れを、ひそかに捻じ曲げてしまうようでもあります。

けれども、彼の旅人たちは、いいようのない可笑しさにも包まれています。水が落ちる。ただそれだけのことを目の前にしただけで、なぜ人々は奇妙な行動をとり始めるのでしょうか。なぜ彼女は滝壷を覗き込み、なぜ彼はその前に据えた三脚を、いつまでも納得いくことなくガタガタと動かし続けるのでしょうか。なぜ彼はそこににじり寄り、なぜ彼女は大きく深呼吸をして目を閉じるのでしょうか。いつの頃からか築かれ始めた、滝を見るための特別な場所（観港台）も、滝という存在が「見る」という人間の行為を刺激する特別な対象であったことを示しています。あるいは、滝に向かって伸びている、草に覆われた獣道のような小道を思い浮かべてみてもよいでしょう。滝は人を惹きつけるのです。人はそこに向かって、常に、新しい小道を拓き続けているのです。滝という存在、あるいはその気配は、人間にある種の行為を引き起こすような何かを与えるのです。滝のアフォーダンス。わたしたちは、それから逃れるべくもないようです。

八田は、奇妙な引力圏を撮影するために、有名無名を問わず、関東を中心とする日本各地の滝に出かけていきます。そんな彼もまた、その引力圏に捉えられたためなのでしょうか、いつしか自らの作品の中に入り込み、間の抜けたポーズを晒すことになります。奇妙な旅人の姿を見つめていたはずの本人が、いつしか彼らと同じような行勤をとってしまっているという滑稽。けれども、不意に、そんな彼の作品がわたしたちの姿を映し出す鏡のようにも思えてきます。滝を眼前にした人々の滑稽な行動は、わたしたちの日常に他ならないのではないか。わたしたちは、八田の滝の前で、言いようのない不安に駆られることになります。わたしたちにとっての滝とは何なのか？わたしたちは、すでに気づかぬうちに水しぶきのかかるところまで来ているのかもしれません。

杉田　敦（批評家）art&river bank 展覧会テキストより

Masaharu Hatta “a new path to the waterfall“

The title of Masaharu Hatta’s series of photographic works a new path to the waterfall derives from the title of a collection of poems that American novelist Raymond Carver wrote late in his life. Hatta’s works convey a sense of oddness, such as an image of a person who vacantly stares into a waterfall. Other images portray a man with his back to a waterfall, who absentmindedly casts his eyes at nothing while another image shows a man who reaches out his hands toward the spray from a waterfall as if he were in search of something The people who appear in Hatta’s works are like the travelers from a future world who never knew the existence of a waterfall. They could also be described as time travelers who have seen a waterfall for the first time, having only previously heard about its existence. Hatta’s works seem to stealthily twist the passage of time in which we live.

Nonetheless, the travelers Hatta depicts are also enveloped in an indescribable humor. Why do these people begin to act so strangely at the mere sight of “falling water”? Why does one of them gaze into the basin of a waterfall, and why does another continue to noisily move around the tripod that he has set before the waterfall, not being able to make up his mind? Why does one of the subjects try to get as close as possible to a waterfall? Why does another close her eyes and take a very deep breath? There is usually a single best observation point for viewing a waterfall; this signifies that people have considered the waterfall to be a special objecft that has necessitated a special spot for the action of “seeing” it A waterfall might also remind one of a narrow path not unlike a grass-covered animal trail that stretches toward a waterfall. Waterfalls undeniably attract people. People from the beginning of time have ceaselessly opened new paths that lead to waterfalls. The existence of a waterfall or the atmosphere of a waterfall provides something that stimulates people into taking some sort of action. Therefore, there is no way we can ignore the affordance provided by a waterfall.

With the aim of photographing a strange type of gravitational field,Hatta visits waterfalls, some famous, some not, that mainly exist in the Kanto area, as well as in various parts of Japan. Does this mean that he is also a captive of that gravitational field? At some point in his artistic career, Hatta himself began to appear in his own works and came to expose his own foolish-looking poses. The ironic thing is that Hatta, who was supposed to be observing the behaviors of strange travelers, at some point began to behave in the same sort of way as those travelers. But as we view Hatta’s works, we start to fee! that they are functioning as mirrors that reflect the state of mind we are in today. This would mean that the funny behaviors of the people who stand before the waterfalls are precisely our own behaviors that we carry in our daily lives. That is the reason why we are seized by an indefinable uneasiness when we stand before the waterfalls depicted in Hatta’s works. What does a waterfall mean to us? Without realizing it, we might have already enterd into a state in which we are being “sprayed by a waterfall.”

art&river bank exhibition text by Athushi Sugita (critic)