To count the leaves to me is to count the uncountable—to count infinity, like the number of stars in the universe or grains of sand slipping through one's hand. I am drawn to the awe and unease of an ungraspable vastness that exceeds human comprehension. As the process unfolded, I realized the rhythm of my daily life began to orbit the life cycle of the tree, surrendering the desire to control and accepting my limits in the face of a staggering amount of fallen leaves.
Opening Hours: M – F, 6 – 10 pm / Sat – Sun, 10 am – 6 pm
Opening Reception: Friday, March 6, 7 – 9 pm
Closing Reception: Thursday, March 19, 7 – 9 pm
Nguyen Wahed Gallery, in collaboration with gmtc — golden monkey trading company 金猿商社, is pleased to announce their second project, Counting Leaves, a durational performance by Motohiro Takeda. Held in the basement of Nguyen Wahed, this project serves the gallery's mission to support experimental, site-responsive, and process-based works—projects that expand the field of artistic inquiry beyond traditional commercial frameworks.
Counting Leaves is a repetitive, manual-focused, and heavily labor-intensive performance centered on a deceptively simple task: the artist counts every leaf he collected from a single ginkgo tree. In a rhythmic display of physical endurance, Takeda picks up the leaves one by one, counting them aloud as he moves them from a massive pile on one side of the room to the other, organizing them into smaller, precise clusters on the floor. The performance persists until every individual leaf has been accounted for.
To count every leaf on a tree is an attempt to grasp the infinite through a finite gesture. By centering the work on the ginkgo—an ancient species that has survived for over 200 million years—Takeda uses the leaf as a catalyst for meditation on time, the cycle of life, and humanity's place within the natural world.
Throughout the autumn of 2025, Takeda devoted himself to collecting fallen leaves from a single giant ginkgo in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. While the task was meticulous and ultimately futile, he pursued the question: how many leaves are on a tree?
Counting Leaves is an attempt to touch the immensity of the world through care, repetition, and attention. As a durational performance, it invites the public to witness and participate in the gravity of this encounter. The act of counting becomes a symbolic gesture of recognition—a humble celebration of individual life within an immeasurable whole.
Motohiro Takeda (b. 1982, Hamamatsu, Japan) primarily works in photography, ceramics, and sculpture to create site-responsive installations. By distilling the materiality of his media and magnifying their inherent metaphors, Takeda explores the ephemeral nature of memory, the space between man and nature, and the universal cycles of life and death. He received his BFA in photography from Parsons School of Design | The New School in 2008 and his MFA in studio art from Columbia University in 2023. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.