Lot Essay
Hatakeyama travelled throughout Japan from Okinawa to Hokkaido, photographing limestone quarries, which resulted in three photographic series. For Lime Works (1991-94), he focused on the factories that process the mined limestone into lime. In his award winning book Lime Works (1996), he writes: 'If the concrete buildings and highways that stretch to the horizon are all made from limestone dug from the hills, and if they should all be ground to dust and this vast quantity of calcium carbonate returned to its precise points of origin, why then, with the last spoonful, the ridge lines of the hills would be restored to their original dimensions. The quarries and the cities are like negative and positive images of a single photograph.' Hatakeyama won the prestigious Kimura Ihee Award in 1997 for Lime Works.
Number 7 from the sold-out edition of 15.
Number 7 from the sold-out edition of 15.