Patrick Nagatani
Downtown L.A.

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Artist Patrick Nagatani American, 1945–2017

Artist Andrée Tracey American, born 1948

CultureAmerican

Titles

Downtown L.A.

Date1984

PlaceLos Angeles, California, United States

MediumDye diffusion transfer print

DimensionsImage: 24 × 20 7/8 in. (61 × 53 cm)
Sheet: 29 1/16 × 21 15/16 in. (73.8 × 55.8 cm)

Credit LineThe Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

Object number91.936

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Special Collections

Allan Chasanoff Photographic Collection

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionThe collaboration between photographer Patrick Nagatani and painter Andrée Tracey began in 1983 when Nagatani was offered two days’ use of Polaroid’s massive 20 x 24–inch camera. “We spent six months preparing a set, five hours installing it, and then the whole shoot was over in 20 minutes,” noted Nagatani. Their elaborately constructed and uniformly colored image Downtown L.A. is peppered with irony and humor despite its dark forecast— the environment of Los Angeles after nuclear war. Though it is clear calamity has occurred, the factory outside seems unchanged. “It’s about a simulated version of reality,” Nagatani noted, “showing the fakeness, but addressing a potentially real situation.”

ProvenanceAllan Chasanoff, New York; given to MFAH, 1991.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed in silver ink, recto, lower left: “DOWNTOWN L.A.” 1984
Signed in silver ink, recto, lower right: NAGATANI / Tracey

Signed in silver ink, recto, lower right: NAGATANI / Tracey

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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