Study of Americana” was a “visual exploration of Americanness” by Masahiro Nogami, who was 31 years old at the time of shooting. The series of photographs taken by Nogami in 1978 in and around Washington, D.C., covered an area along the National Highway from Washington to Arlington, Virginia, in the south, and to Baltimore, Maryland, in the north. Nogami found the area’s charm in its ordinariness, and meticulously documented scenes that seemed out of step with the times, yet were full of powerful American-style colors and designs. Clothing stores and barbershops, movie theaters with art deco architecture, supermarkets, gas stations, diners, billboards, parking meters, and so on, all of them are places where people stop by in their cars. This exhibition will feature nearly 40 works from “Study of Americana,” a collection of photographs taken 45 years ago.
