BEST 10 Exhibitions in 2023
[調整中／Under Maintenance]
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山口情報芸術センター/Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]、許家維＋張碩尹＋鄭先喻「浪のしたにも都のさぶらふぞ」/Chia-Wei Hsu, Ting-Tong Chang and Hsien-Yu Cheng: "There Is Another Capital beneath the Wave"
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東京オペラシティ アートギャラリー/Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery、石川真央「私に何ができらか」/Mao Ishikawa: What Can I Do?
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21_21 DESIGN SIGHT IN TOKYO, "Material, or"
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国立新美術館/The National Art Center, Tokyo、蔡國強「宇宙遊 ―〈原初火球〉から始まる」/Cai Guo-Qiang: "Ramble in the Cosmos―From Primeval Fireball Onward"
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TOTOギャラリー・間（ま）/Toto Gallery Ma、ドットアーキテクツ展「生きるための力学」/dot architects : "Politics of Living"
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奥能登国際芸術祭2023 /Oku-Noto Triennale 2023
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東京都現代美術館/Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo [MOT]、MOTコレクション「被膜虚実／Breathing めぐる呼吸」/MOT Collection: "Membrane of the Time / Breathing"
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[To Be Added]
許家維＋張碩尹＋鄭先喻「浪のしたにも都のさぶらふぞ」
チョ・ヘス
YCAMで発表された作品「浪のしたにも都のさぶらふぞ」は、台湾現代美術の現状と技術的な完成度を示すとともに、国際的なコラボレーションの進むべき道とその可能性を予感させるものであった。
本作品は、それぞれの領域で独自の個性と技術を持つ3人の作家、許家維、張碩尹、鄭先喻が、人形劇、サウンドアート、映像、VRテクノロジーを組み合わせ、一つの大作を完成させたものである。作品は1部と2部で構成されている。人形劇とサウンドアート、そして物語的構成の混合が目立つ映像作品である第1部は台湾で制作され、CGアニメーションとライブパフォーマンスで構成された第2部は日本で制作された。
作品の背景とその物語の流れは、日本の帝国主義と植民地主義が搾取の足がかりとした台湾の砂糖生産を中心にしている。大日本帝国によって設立された台湾の砂糖工場は、その後のアジア太平洋戦争末期、燃料不足の問題を克服するために、飛行機や自動車の燃料となるアルコールの開発生産につながる。本展は、YCAMのラボ施設を利用し、砂糖をアルコールに変換した後、模型飛行機を動かすインスタレーションで仕上げられている。
本作品は様々なモチーフ、ジャンル、叙事的な仕掛けを含んでいる。例えば、作品にも登場する台湾の伝統的な人形劇の場合、台湾の大衆娯楽であり、日本統治時代には皇民化教育のツールとして使われたジャンルでもある。人形劇だけでなく、2部のライブパフォーマンスにもつながるこの「操り」のモチーフは、過去の植民地時代の遺産だけでなく、近代化の風景として残された施設、いまだに影を残す帝国主義、そしてCG/VR/AIといったメディアと現代人の関係を映し出す。
伝統と現代の要素を混在させ、豊かな体験を提示しながらも、それが単なる新技術の饗宴のためではなく、歴史的背景とテーマのために繊細に選択されたジャンルであるという点で完成度が高い。また、映像の一場面として登場する送電線、洞窟などの自然/人工の風景も歴史的背景を意味し、これらのランドスケープに内在する暴力の痕跡が音とともに感覚的な衝突を引き起こす。
このような複雑な構造と豊富な情報量にさらに大きな意味を与えるのは、何よりもこれが台湾と日本の共同制作で作られていることにある。これは、日本の現代アートがグローバルな環境下でのコラボレーションを望むとき、進むべき方向性を示している。コラボレーションと共に生まれる「グローバル」「アジア」といった言葉に対する批判的な自覚と反省は、これまでそれぞれの内部で議論されてこなかった豊かな可能性を提示するだろう。また、もう一つの期待は、このような作品が植民地時代を経験した他国で再上映、再解釈されることで、その力学を反転させ、共感と差異の間で幅広い幅の理解を引き出すことである。そうすることで、暴力と芸術についての再考を提供し、コラボレーションの本来の意図に到達するものと思われる。
許家維＋張碩尹＋鄭先喻 「浪のしたにも都のさぶらふぞ」
2023年6月3日〜9月3日
https://www.ycam.jp/events/2023/there-is-another-capital-beneath-the-waves/
撮影：田中直子
撮影：田中直子
Exhibition View, YCAM, 2023. Photography: Hyesu Cho
Mao Ishikawa: What Can I Do?
Benjamin Korman
This exhibition of more than 400 photographs offers a vivid glimpse into the personality and perspective of the Japanese Okinawa-born photographer Mao Ishikawa. Split into many sections (but easily separable into two halves), the exhibition recounts her open-minded explorations into the military occupation, class, race, sex, illness, and motherhood. The first portion of the exhibition includes some of her most notable photography collections, including candid images of everyday life in Okinawa and collections that show her explorations outside of Japan including Life in Philly, about her travels in the United States visiting African American friends she met as a bartender serving American soldiers. A particularly intimate series captures images of her own body after a surgery leaves her dependent on a colostomy bag. She is unafraid to share her opinions about both the U.S. Military and the Japan Self-Defense Forces, nor is she unwilling to share the deeper understanding she develops with both organizations.
The second half of the series encompasses a single collection, The Great Ryukyu Photo Scroll. Unlike her earlier work, these images are printed in color and displayed in the style of a roll of film that snakes across through multiple galleries. It tells the story of the people of Okinawa through a mix of documentary, reenactment, and metaphor. Every model is a local. Sometimes the artist makes use of papier mâché to satirize local politicians; sometimes she just wants to share the daily experience of a local family. Themes of colonial repression, nuclear protest, national identity, and ecological decline present themselves intermittently and the sheer volume of images (and the range of topics and time periods covered) immerses the visitor without overwhelming them.
Upon entry to the exhibition, you are presented with a booklet containing detailed descriptions and reactions from Ishikawa herself to every photograph on display. The thoroughness can be overwhelming but it is an excellent resource for finding more information about the people and situations in the images, in part because they elucidate the complex history of the islands and its inhabitants through the artists stark and unfiltered point of view.
Mao Ishikawa: What Can I Do?
13 October, 2023 - 24 December, 2023
Mao Ishikawa’s The Great Ryukyu Photo Scroll at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
A photograph from The Great Ryukyu Photo Scroll.
Exhibition View, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2023. Photography: Benjamin Korman
"Material, or" Exhibition Review
Materialing Reverie
Rocio de los Angeles Cruz Toranzo
A playground for the senses, the soul and the mind, this was the less of what many expected when visiting ``Material.or``, exhibition that still holds one of the best concept and principles in the last year. ``-how we assign meaning to raw materials as they become a medium for creation``- examines Satoshi Yoshiizumi from TAKT PROJECT, curator of this project.
The postmodern approach, the conceptuality of art as a platform of meanings and the human relationship with the objects in their environment is reminiscent of readymade statements, principles that in this occasion are exceeded with the almost antithetical and Renaissance premise of the return to notions and relationships primordial states. ‘Such relationships with raw materials can be thought of as dialogues. Through them, we interact with the earth's resources and create objects ‘, as Yoshiizumi explains. `
Of course many people could also relate to the prospects of sustainably between human and nature relationships, but, thanks to exhibition becoming an anthropologic and scientific gathering of material, surfaces, organic and inorganic junk, flora and fauna, that provides case studies examples by the hand of not just visual artists but also designers, carpenters, farmers, bioengineers and others like anthropologist Toshiaki Ishikura and biomimetic designer Jun Kamei, all the aesthetically pleasing objects of the exhibition were more compelling to think about sensitivity pulls triggering the interest in cultural-anthropological perspectives to tease how humanity has manipulated nature. The ‘our everyday stuff‘ from which we have disconnected from beyond knowing its composition and use is the protagonist in this occasion. The mission of the visitors is to unravel and explore without apprehensions the possible dialogues between what lies behind the essence of materials and its interaction with design and creation humanity instincts.
During the visit in a well arranged space where each piece logically entangles between different forms and technologies, one cannot stop thinking of some Japanese aesthetics reminiscences of wabi-sabi or mono no aware vibes. But this also helped to focus in an interactive and deeper lecture of the works and their invitation to feel the connection or disconnections within the raw state of not just what surround us and humanity but also the healing properties of reconnecting with it.
Participating Creators: ARKO, Shinya Aota, ACTANT FOREST, Kwangho Lee, Yuji Ueda, Kaori Endo, Sho Ota, Shiori Ono, Masashi Kanasaki, Jun Kamei (Amphico) + Youichi Sakamoto + Yuko Sakamoto, Zsofia Kollar, TAKT PROJECT, DRIFT, Aoi Nagasawa, Chikara Nisato, Masato Hatanaka, Pete Oxford, Formafantasma, BRANCH, Sae Honda, Haruka Misawa + Misawa Design Institute, Katsunobu Yoshida (for printer: Katsunobu Yoshida, for carpenter: Tatsuhiro Ara, for farmer: Katsuya Nito, for basket weavers: Moe Watanabe), and others
Material, or
14 July 2023 - 5 November, 2023
Exhibition Poster. Source: K21_21 DESIGN SIGHT Homepage
Cai Guo-Qiang: "Ramble in the Cosmos―From Primeval Fireball Onward"
Drowning in Beauty
Lyudmila Georgieva
The exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Ramble in the Cosmos - From Primeval Fireball Onwards was held between June and August 2023 in the National Art Center Tokyo. It presented the art of Guo-Qiang from the late 80s until his most recent projects - from paper drawings, screen, wood, and mirror paintings and videos of past performances, to large kinetic light installations. What united the diverse artworks was the constant use of gunpowder as a primary medium and the persistent references to space, the life of the stars, and the infinity of the universe - clear underlying interests in Qiang’s works.
Ramble in the Cosmos - From Primeval Fireball Onwards is an ambitious project that manages to present Qiang’s art practice while simultaneously creating an immersive artistic experience for the audience.
The standout curatorial decision without a doubt was to stage the exhibition in a single open hall, without clear boundaries between the artworks, themselves grouped more per their medium and type, than chronologically. While the logical direction of movement within the gallery - from right to left - still gave a structured overview, starting from plans and drawings, through paintings and video, and ending with the light installations and mirror works, the openness of the room permitted the visitor to perceive everything at once and alter his course accordingly. The middle of the room, where the floating light installations were stages, dominated the show from the gate, and an alternative route - from the center to the peripheries of the exhibition hall, made just as much sense to the visitors.
There was a second room behind the main hall that held written materials and documentary videos of a performance installation, however as the room didn’t keep the aesthetics or the atmosphere of the main hall, it felt simultaneously separated and forgettable in the grandness of the rest of the show.
The biggest strength of the exhibition was conceptually keeping two opposite currents in a delicate balance. It was constructed on two seemingly opposite yet connected ends of a spectrum - the fire explosion - the Big Bang that instantaneously created the universe, and in the same breath the infinity of time and space, the constant flow of the same cosmos. Among drawings of fireballs and firework performances, light kinetic structures floated above ground and mirror paintings with gunpowder marks invited us into the mirror space, where our own eyes looked back from infinity. Mirroring this opposition, the show unfolded into consequent oppositions held in tension - simultaneously mythological and astrophysical interrogation of the universe, all-embracing vantage point towards the universe and a concrete human perspective, metaphysical explorations of reality materialized in carnival light structures and fireworks.
The exhibition itself was painted in untenable beauty. Despite Qiang’s metaphysical explorations, his art doesn’t appear high-brow, inaccessible, or even conceptual. Instead, there is an impression of spectacle, of attractiveness, even flash, that is bright enough to bring the visitor’s attention. This is done, however, without bringing the aesthetic essence down. The underlying concept and execution - artistic and curatorial, was rigorous and thorough, running deep below the surface, revealing hidden depths of the initial thought, and drowning the exhibition in fascination. Fascinating for both the casual viewer and the examining artist, curator, or critic.
Cai Guo-Qiang: "Ramble in the Cosmos―From Primeval Fireball Onward"
29 June 2023 - 21 August 2023
ヘッディング 1
Cai Guo-Qiang, Frolicking on Ice in the Galaxy, 2020
Gunpowder on glass and mirror
205 x 915 cm
Photo by Wen-You Cai, courtesy Cai Studio
Exhibition View, The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2023. Photography: Lyudmila Georgieva
dot architects : "Politics of Living"
Benjamin Korman
Dot Architects transformed TOTO GALLERY MA—a two-story white cube above a toilet showroom in Nogizaka—into a D.I.Y wonderland for this exhibition about the creation of “small autonomous spaces” to “generate individual lives imbued with diverse idiosyncrasies.” That is to say, this exhibition is about creating or renovating buildings into places where people can come together and live. Though they provide detailed information about a number of inspirations (anarchist houses in Turin and Milan, Italy) and company projects (Coop Kitakagaya, a reclaimed studio space south of Osaka, and Umaki Camp in Shodoshima), the most striking example is what they have done to the gallery itself. Various activity stations fill the space: a silkscreen studio, a radio station, an area for designing golf putters out of cardboard, a rooftop miniature golf course. The arrangement clarifies the importance for architects to design spaces around the diverse needs of the people who use it.
There is an air of levity throughout the exhibition. The invitation to enter the space is also an encouragement to have fun, spend time, and interact with strangers. Projects on display not only imagine meeting halls and private homes, but they also evoke adventures in spaceships and silly hats for talking animals. Video monitors are hidden in the ceiling. This show makes it clear that buildings are more than a space for working and living. They are an impetus for contact and exchange.
dot architects : "Politics of Living"
18 May 2023 - 6 August 2023
Politics of Living at Toto Gallery Ma
Cardboard putters designed by architects and previous visitors to the exhibition
Exhibition View, Toto Gallery Ma, 2023. Photography: Benjamin Korman
Oku-Noto Triennale 2023
Qiuyu Jin
In July 2021, I embarked on my first journey to Suzu.It was about two hours or less from Haneda to Noto Airport, in the early morning. When I arrived at the airport, I met an artist who was going to the venue with me at the bus waiting gate and chatted the whole way. I can't remember how often I drove from Noto Airport to Suzu Center after that. On rainy days, with some autumn leaves and white snow, what remains unchanged is the lacquered black bricks and tiles burnt in Suzu, and it settles down in my heart even if I am a first-time visitor. This lacquered black is just like the pearl, like a black swan, curving down its neck in the middle of the sky, hiding its orange beak deep in the darkness of the night, letting the waves shine. Our bus drove to the Triennale's office, and we discussed going to lunch first. A corner was turned and a dolphin mural was seen, like a guardian of this sea. The project I needed to follow up on in Suzu was the "Suzu Theatre Museum," a theatre-museum combination made of found objects by 8 artists. My work was very simple, mainly involving communication and assistance with artists, resident staff, museum professors, designers, local volunteers, and of course some documentation in the archive and library.
Some of the observations I made during this period also convinced me that the format of Triennale is quite simple, but of course, there are good and bad things about it, and most of the Triennale assisted/sponsored by Art Front Gallery follow the same model as the first Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale more than 20 years ago: a single director, not adopting the theme of a traditional biennale, naming the Triennale by the region, and deciding whether or not to keep the artworks at the end of the exhibition period. Such a model has certainly been pushed to the forefront of a great deal of art criticism in the past. But today, in the present, from the complicated perspective of a party and also an audience, I do not want to discuss too much about how art triennials are.
When I visited the Okunoto Triennale 2023 last November, it did not occur to me at the time that, just two months later, most of the works I saw would be damaged or destroyed in the earthquake earlier in the year. These Art Biennales/Triennals have long been thought of as "rebirths" or "remakes", but this earthquake, as if to prove yet again that decisive external forces can destroy so many things in a single moment, and is not uncommon in contemporary temporality. Humanity itself has not only failed to catch up with the developments that followed the Industrial Revolution, but in this endless process of keeping up, it has created a huge number of things that have to be consumed. I have been reflecting on the purpose and meaning of these art events through theory and practice for the past six or seven years, and it seems that I have come to a deeper introspection in the wake of the Okunoto Earthquake.
One of the works in the 2023 edition, TENGAI, by Alexander Ponomarev(1), disused sake tank from a local brewery, the artist creates a boat-themed installation with sailing poles, girders, and other materials. Walking near the work, you could hear the bass sound shaped by the wind, as if the whole Suzu and Noto Peninsula was a huge ship about to sail away. I can't forget how I felt at that moment. When I was in Shanghai at the beginning of the year, when I heard about the earthquake in Noto, the first image that came to my mind was that the sails of this gigantic ship had been snapped off, so that it had no place to go in the sea, and was sinking continuously. I believe that sensibility is certainly more pronounced in some moments of great change and fallout, but that doesn't mean that every minute of everyday difference so far should be ignored or treated too differently.
If we can make a force supposition about the original power possessed by the human being's body and mental self in such moments, the more massive the space, the more concentrated the time the disaster triggers the more people, the more organisms, and the greater the wavelengths and changes that might be produced. So why is that the case, is it that catastrophes and wars are not powerful enough? Why is it that most catastrophes and wars in the world tend to be painless for most people?
This is the case with everything in this world, and the question of how to reach people who are not connected to it is one of the fundamental questions of art. The artworks themselves merely present an opportunity. However, the significance of these works can be likened to the treasures lying at the bottom of an immense ocean. Though time has elapsed and the ship itself may have decayed, its essence persists in various forms through the endless ages. From experience to expertise and then back to a different kind of experience, every time I view these works, I can't help but feel like I am the fortunate one. Whether it's a treasure or not, in this digital age of exploration, there still exist opportunities to intertwine with history. In the period after the Triennale, whether the works were left behind, removed, or destroyed by the catastrophe, all the people and things were waiting or being waited for as if they were floating in a community of destiny.
（1）https://www.oku-noto.jp/ja/artist_ponomarev.html
Oku-Noto Triennale 2023
23 September 2023 - 12 November, 2023
https://www.oku-noto.jp/ja/index_en.html
Work View, Oku-Noto Triennale 2023, 2023. Photography: Qiuyu Jin
MOT Collection: "Membrane of the Time / Breathing"
Lyudmila Georgieva
Membrane of the Time/ Breathing was held in the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) from March until June 2024. The exhibition presented works spanning the last thirty years, organized under two interconnected themes: Membrane and Breathing.
MOT collection exhibitions are an interesting case of a museum attempting to work productively with the artworks in its possession. The museum clearly has the ambition to not just exhibit but to hermeneutically interrogate the art of past decades, finding new connections between different timelines and new relationships of the past with the present moment. In Radical Museology Claire Bishops points precisely at collection exhibitions as sites of the “non/presentist” and “multi/temporal” explorations that contemporaneity demands, questioning the past with the high sight of the present. With mixed results, MOT applies a similar strategy to the thematical presentation of the museum’s vast collection of XXth-century art.
The present exhibition is one of the more ambitious projects, completely eschewing chronological arrangement in favor of thematic interrogation of artworks from the last three decades in the light of a post-pandemic world. The division into two themes: Membrane of time and Breathing actually seems rather conditional: two different paths to arrive at a single conceptual center. While at first the conceptual difference was physically manifested, Membrane of time occupying the first floor and Breathing - the third, during the exhibition period the floorplan was rearranged, mixing the two.
The Membrane of time concept takes inspiration from the recently acquired Mikami Seiko’s World Membrane: Disposal Containers- Suitcases/ [Suitcase(Yellow] installation, 1992-93: seven clear and one opaque suitcase, packed with chemical waste that they obviously are meant to contain. The sheer amount of containers and waste however sows doubt in the possibility for the danger to be completely isolated from us. The keyword membrane refers to a biological organ with two functions – simultaneously protecting through separation and at the same time selectively connecting the outside with the inside. Instead of completely sealing off the interior from the environment it mediates the connection between the two, distorting it but also making it possible. Time in this case carries significantly less conceptual depth, referring to the different timelines to which the artworks belong, the exhibition itself becoming a membrane allowing the past to come forward and speak.
The connection with the recent COVID-19 pandemic is obvious – the world‘s frantic effort for absolute safety and coming to terms with the reality that such safety, complete isolation, is impossible. Adding to this obvious connotation, the exhibition also explored ways of mediation, distance, and connection between objects and the viewer.
Sight comes out as the strongest example of a membrane, a mediator between us and the outside world. The artworks take upon themselves to disprove the transparency of the act of seeing. In the sculptural pieces of Nawa Kohei - hyperrealistic dears, covered in pixel spheres, that both enhance and distort their form, the eye is being tricked by the surface, gliding on it without being able to penetrate. Coming from the opposite direction but with the same effect, the hyperrealistic paintings of Iba Yasuko (fabric patterns), Chiba Masaya (room interiors), and Murase Kyoko (human portraits) also defuse the readability of the object, this time obstructed by scale and inability to focus. In terms of style hyperrealism curiously dominates in the exhibition, ironically used to deny the ability of the eye to take in the object before it.
Membrane becomes a space of its own in Homma Takashi's suburbia photographs - the edges, the membrane, of the city, as well as in Han Ishu's video that positions the human body at its physical limit – the raw nature. Momose Aya on the other hand explores societal borders, working with gender at the limit, controversially positioning femininity between human autonomy and animal commodification.
While the Membrane concept dominates the exhibition, the actual stand-out works for me were positioned in the theme of Breathing. If Membrane talks about borders and strives for containment, Breathing exposes the inevitable interconnectedness of living. Both Endo Toshikatsu’s Fountain and Montine Boonma’s Tea House celebrate the possibility of connection, air as a shared connective tissue.
In those two works the two separate themes: Membrane and Breathing collapse into one another. In a post-COVID-19 world, the strive for protective distance on one hand and the realization of the inevitable physical interconnectedness of all humanity on the other produces anxieties that we as humans are yet to deal with. The impossibility of a perfect vacuum, however, can be once again turned into a positive, societal connection that can be brought forward as a means for survival.
MOT’s Membrane of the Time/ Breathing is simultaneously an insightful and formally interesting exhibition. The interrogation of the present and future from the past serves not only as a contemporary artistic, but also as a proof that the problems we face today are not new and unique, the past is not too different from the present, and the future is constantly being created.
MOT Collection: "Membrane of the Time / Breathing"
18 March 2023 - 18 June 2023
https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en/exhibitions/mot-collection-230318/
Exhibition View, MOT, 2023. Photography: Lyudmila Georgieva