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“The Incendiary Test Area series” was produced by Mokuhanga master Shoichi Kitamura in collaboration with the Norwegian artist Gardar Eide Einarsson and published by Trykkeriet. Executed as traditional Japanese woodblock prints in Kyoto, the works are notable for their near-photorealistic rendering despite the labor-intensive, hand-crafted technique of mokuhanga.
The imagery is based on historical photographs of full-scale model houses built by the U.S. Army at Dugway Proving Ground during World War II, which were repeatedly burned to test incendiary weapons. These structures—meticulously designed to replicate German and Japanese domestic interiors—functioned as experimental sites of destruction, turning architecture into what Einarsson frames as a kind of “anti-architecture.”
Kitamura’s prints depict empty, damaged interiors—stairwells, corridors, and rooms strewn with debris—rendered with a quiet, almost meditative stillness. This calm aesthetic sharply contrasts with the violent history embedded in the subject matter, producing a tension between beauty and devastation.
The collaboration itself introduces layered paradoxes: Japanese craftsmanship is used to depict American reconstructions of Japanese spaces built for annihilation. The absence of human figures further heightens a sense of unease, as the viewer is placed in an ambiguous moment between destruction and reconstruction.
Overall, the series reflects Einarsson’s broader concern with systems of power, representation, and historical memory.
The series were originally exhibited at Trykkeriet in October 2023, and have since also been exhibited at Maureen Paley in 2026. The works are now in the collection of the British Museum, The Norwegian National Museum and the KODE Art museum.
