Cityscapes of Tokyo

    Things To Do has been both horrified and mesmerized by the images of destruction coming out of Japan in the wake of the tsunami. People build stable, reliable buildings and machines that allow us to live and thrive in a civilized manner; nature doesn’t care.

     

    “Ephemeral Existence”

    Things To Do has been both horrified and mesmerized by the images of destruction coming out of Japan in the wake of the tsunami. People build stable, reliable buildings and machines that allow us to live and thrive in a civilized manner; nature doesn’t care.

    • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

    We are humbled by the enormous, relentless power of Poseidon to wipe out the accomplishments of human industry. That’s why the photographs of Tetsugo Hyakutake now on display at 339 Gallery have unwittingly gained levels of fascination and perplexity right now, as our brains are flooded with floods.

    Hyakutake takes gorgeous, gleaming pictures of the industrial hubris of Japan’s post-war economic miracle. Mostly taken at night, the freeway overpasses glisten with watery softness and the dock cranes glow under caresses of floodlights. The artists seems to be trying to process the scale of national infrastructure into something he can internalize, rendering it as hazy dream.

    Toggling between these photographs and news images of a wall of water in hard sunlight, Things To Do is lost in translation.

    “Ephemeral Existence” Tetsugo Hyakutake 339 Gallery 339 S. 21st Street 215-731-1530 gallery339.com

    WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

    Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

    Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal