Label Text: Tomatsu, a self-taught photographer, is known for his poetic approach to documentary photography, creating images that transcend time-bound events. This photograph shows the isolated face of a wristwatch unearthed seven-tenths of a kilometer from the epicenter of the atomic bomb explosion in Nagasaki, Japan.
The glass face of the timepiece is badly chipped and damaged. A black void exists where the minute and hour hands once came together, and the strap that bound it to a wrist is gone. The damaged object is pictured from an aerial perspective, placed on a soft fabric. Its weight radiates a gray abstract shadow that suggests a bomb blast, and its central location mirrors that of the red orb of the Japanese flag. Tomatsu’s wristwatch is a symbolic expression of time arrested, of death.
Tags: clouds; wars; time; aggressiveness; damage; destruction Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2004.244 |