As fall’s deadening coolness grips our trees and greens with fire, I find myself reaching back for summer. I rarely run, but these days I spend the sweet, shrinking sliver between my workday’s end and night on the Westside Highway. The thought that maybe I can chase down just a few more minutes of light makes me run faster.
Inevitably, I run back home as the sun sets, and my steady improvement from this accidental training makes my regular chases for sunlight feel faster and more desperate. Soon enough, the sliver will shrink to nothingness, and I’ll be leaving work in darkness. Solace comes in many forms, however. I appreciate no longer sweating the second I step outside, the tinges of warmth in the leaves, and pumpkin spice. An alternative form of solace came, unexpectedly, from a recent visit to Motohiro Takeda’s solo exhibition, Something to Remember You By, at Alison Bradley Projects.
After taking the elevator to the 8th floor and walking through the sterile halls, one is confronted by a crackled and scorched wall. It appears as though the artist has torched it to oblivion, with the edges of the damage blackened before flaking off, revealing scabs of ash underneath. Beneath this plume-like index of fire lies a concrete hand atop a mossy found stone, its palm upturned towards the burn. Beneath the mossy stone, a blackened pedestal of wood serves as the ultimate support. The hand looks on the verge of crumbling, as its hard surface reveals vulnerabilities where browning tufts of flora wilt further. This sculpture, Nights in April, introduces the play of materiality and tension between fixity and expiration that resounds in Takeda’s work.
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