The cover image for this issue of Artkrush is a detail of Blast #5416, a 1998 chromogenic print by Japanese photographer Naoya Hatakeyama. The work is on view through September 7 as part of Heavy Light: Recent Photography and Video from Japan at the International Center of Photography in New York.

Born in 1958 in Iwate, Japan, Hatakeyama studied at the University of Tsukuba in Ibaraki for both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies, and emerged at the forefront of a group of artists working after Asia's 1990 economic crisis. Hatakeyama has exhibited throughout Japan and worldwide; highlights include solo shows at L.A. Galerie in Frankfurt, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, and the Fundacion BBK in Bilbao, and a group show at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Though he often shows in Paris and New York, Hatakeyama lives and works in Tokyo.

Hatakeyama's work explores the archetypal conflict of man versus nature from a dazzlingly broad perspective. In the early '80s, Hatakeyama moved to Tokyo to work in the image department of an advertising agency. After producing a video with Joseph Beuys, however, he quit his job to dedicate himself to photography. Following his father's death and his return home to Iwate, Hatakeyama found his first serious subject in the limestone quarry next to his house. The Lime Hills (1986-91) series studies the quarries in different lighting and from different angles, contrasting them with their surroundings of industrial mayhem and the natural landscape just beyond.

In the Blast series, in progress since 1995, Hatakeyama focuses on the destructive explosions and rocky avalanches caused by the press of a fused button. Connections can be seen between his work and other geologically inclined artists like Caspar David Friedrich, Paul Cézanne, and Robert Smithson, but Hatakeyama has additionally explored subterranean subway systems, running rivers, and bird's-eye views of Tokyo. He captures subjects both attached to and distant from his own country, in styles that draw parallels with tradition and yet reject it. - Lauren McKee