Lines —Aligning your consciousness with the flow｜21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Lines —Aligning your consciousness with the flow

2024.6.22(Sat.) - 2024.10.14(Mon.)

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Information

Period:

2024.6.22(Sat.) - 2024.10.14(Mon.)
10:00-18:00（until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays）

Venue:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Gallery 7 to 12, 14 and Public Zone

Admission:

Adults: ¥1,200 (¥1,000)
Students: ¥800 (¥600)
18 and under: ¥400 (¥300)
65 and over: ¥1,000
*Fees in parentheses are for groups of 20 people or more and web tickets
*Tickets also include admission (same day only) to “Collection Exhibition 1” .

Book tickets here

Closed:

Mondays (except July 15, August 12, September 16, 23, October 14), and July 16, August 13, September 17, 24, 2024

Number of Artists：
16 groups

Number of works：
35

For More Information:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Phone: +81-76-220-2800
E-Mail: info@kanazawa21.jp

In the quest for a more harmonious and balanced relationship between humans and nature, art, with its characteristically open and receptive mindset and willingness to question existing assumptions, can serve as an important platform for reconsidering where we stand, living in the present moment, and the question of where to direct our consciousness. We believe that our active engagement with the natural world also has an impact on contemporary shifts in consciousness and our understanding of ʻthe worldʼ. Referring to Tim Ingoldʼs idea that most of what artists produce in their endless pursuit of the clues they find in nature proceeds along lines, the exhibition “Lines —Aligning your consciousness with the flow” explores the world in terms of a web of interconnected ecological processes and integrates our creative human practices into a broader context, presenting works by artists who actively participate in explorations of these lines, understanding the act of tracing and following them as an ongoing process of a kind of positive ʻbecomingʼ, continuing to stitch together a variety of rifts and cracks in order to live.

Chief Curator, Hiromi Kurosawa

Related Programs

Lecture addressed by Tim Ingold LINES OF ATTENTION; LINES OF CREATION: THE WORK OF ART IN A POSSIBLE WORLD

Tim Ingold, an up-and-coming anthropologist and social scientist, has an interesting perspective on the concept of lines. In one of his books, Lines, he presents the idea that lines are not pre-existing entities in the world, but rather processes and activities themselves. Ingold himself shares some of his research on how lines are woven into as the fabric of the world, connecting objects, people and ideas.
Date: Saturday, 12 October, 14:00–15:30 Doors open 13:30
Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Theatre 21 All seats free Advance booking required
capacity: 100 persons
*Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation provided

“meet the artists” Gallery talks by artists

Six artists from the exhibition Lines - aligning consciousness with the flow talk about their own work in front of their artworks for 30 minutes. This is a valuable opportunity for the artists to talk about their concepts and ideas in their own voices.
Date: Saturday, 22 June ＊Consecutive interpretation (Japanese-English)
Session 1: 11:00–11:30 Shinji Ohmaki
Session 2: 11:45–12:30 Henrique Oliveira＊
Session 3: 14:00–14:45 Eugenia Raskopoulos＊
Session 4: 15:00–15:30 Nami Yokoyama
Session 5: 15:45–16:30 Jakob Fenger（SUPERFLEX）＊
Session 6: 17:00–18:30 Judy Watson＋Cheryl Leavy（Reading, Poet）＊

Learn about Bees

Marguerite Humeau, one of the artists exhibiting at “Lines — Aligning your consciousness with the flow,” is deeply interested in the collective behavior of insects, which is reflected in her sculptures and video works. In connection with her work, this event will include a lecture on bee ecology and a visit to a Japanese honey bee hive set up on the museum grounds.
*This program is a collaborative project with the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa volunteer members “Mirai Cafe/BeesClub.”

Instructor: Takuya Ishikawa (curator, Ishikawa Insect Museum)
Dates: September 7 (Sat), 14:00-15:30

Lecture and Dining: “Tracing the Saba Kaido (Mackerel Road)” with Yuna Yagi

Artist talk by exhibiting artist Yuna Yagi + lecture and dining on the group of Saba Kaido (“Mackerel Roads”) that connect Wakasa and Kyoto.
Date: Monday, 7 October
*Details will be on our website after 1 August.
Yuna Yagi (exhibiting artist), Atsushi Nakahigashi (culinary director, chef), Kawamata Hirotaka (curator, Obama city, Culture and Tourism Section)

Walk and Talk: Walking tour of the exhibition with the curator

“Lines — Aligning your consciousness with the flow” is an exhibition that considers the tangled web of threads and relationships spun by every organic body on Earth. In addition to presenting artworks in the museum, we encourage visitors to take a walk to discover “lines” in nature.
Each tour will be led by either Hiromi Kurosawa (chief curator, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa) or Yumiko Nonaka (curator for this exhibition), and will take visitors on a walk around the museum grounds.
Date: July 13, 27, September 14, 28 9:45-10:45
*Tomo-no-kai members only: August 10 (Sat) 18:30-19:30
*Sustain members only: August 24 (Sat) 8:00-9:00

Exhibiting artists (in alphabetical order)

El Anatsui, Tiffany Chung, Sam Falls, Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Marguerite Humeau, Mark Manders, Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano, Shinji Ohmaki, Henrique Oliveira, Oksana Pasaiko, Eugenia Raskopoulos, SUPERFLEX, Sarah Sze, Judy Watson, Yuna Yagi, Nami Yokoyama

Artists Profile（pdf）

Main works in the exhibition

Nami Yokoyama, Shape of Your Words [in India 2023/8.1-8.19], 2024
Private collection
Courtesy of KENJI TAKI GALLERY
© Nami Yokoyama
photo : ITO Tetuso

Nami Yokoyama ( In front of Gallery 7 )

Shape of Your Words[In India 2023/ 8.1-8.19], 2024

Nami Yokoyama creates words and images meant for consumption using real neon, and faithfully depicts them in the medium of painting. Her most recent work is Shape of Your Words, a collage of the words “I am” written by people other than herself for the first time, produced as a result of her residency in India. These handwritten letters produced by manual movements guided by the eye and mind create unique traces that reflect the intentions, feelings, and thoughts of the person at that particular moment. Yokoyama describes the process of transforming these drawings of handwritten letters into three-dimensional forms with neon tubes and then back into two dimensions as the act of “faithfully depicting another person’s body,” as expressed by the phrase “I am.” These handwritten lines have the ability to connect the mind, body, and outside world to each other directly, in a way that goes beyond the meaning of the words.
Shinji Ohmaki, Plateau 2024, 2024
Installation view: “Lines —Aligning your consciousness with the flow”,
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2024
Collection of the artist
photo: Shinji Ohmaki Studio

Shinji Ohmaki ( Gallery 7 )

Plateau 2024, 2024

The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea surrounded by Eurasia
continent and the Japanese archipelago and is fed by the Tsushima Warm Current from the Tsushima Strait. The Noto Peninsula, which was hit by the earthquake of 1 January 2024, is the peninsula that protrudes most into this Sea of Japan. In Plateau 2024 by Shinji Ohmaki, the dynamic movement of the continents that make up the world is depicted on a disc, a silver object set above it depicts the sky and ocean above Yamato-tai, and the topography of Yamato-tai is engraved in grooves on a pendulum that moves quietly on the disc. The relationship between land and sea, which changes with time, is always in a state of 'becoming', marking a time different from the axis of time shared by human society. Ohmaki suggests in this work that entities should not be seen as fixed and static, but as something that is captured in a web of relationships and constantly changing in its interaction with the environment, representing the fluctuating 'movement' between the mass of quantity and the environment surrounding it.
Judy Watson
great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami), 2019
Collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
©Judy Watson photo: KIOKU Keizo

Judy Watson ( Gallery 8 )

memory scar finger lime root casuarina yeronga studio found object, 2020
standing stone, ochre net, spine, 2020
great artesian basin springs, the gulf (jiwil, wanami), 2019
skullduggery, 2021

Judy Watson references her Australian Indigenous Aboriginal heritage to create monotypes*, sculptures, and installation works that position traditional Indigenous art forms and symbols of their lives and culture in a contemporary context. Her skillful use of materials such as pigments, ochre, and natural dyes, as well as her incorporation of found objects and archival materials into her works integrate layers of time and memory with her own physicality as a person of Indigenous heritage in a way that imbues them with a rich depth and significance.
*Monotype: A printmaking technique in which the image drawn on the plate is transferred to the paper by drawing directly on the plate using drawing materials such as ink or oil paint, and then placing the paper on top of the plate and applying pressure.
El Anatsui, Perspectives, 2015
© El ANATSUI
Collection of the 21st Century Museum of
Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
photo: KIOKU Keizo

El Anatsui( Gallery 8 )

Perspectives, 2015

Anatsui’s iconic works are often intricate tapestries made from discarded materials such as metal bottle caps, milk can lids, and aluminum strips. By painstakingly sewing and weaving these materials together, he transforms them into monumental sculptures. This work measuring 12 meters high shows the organic intertwining of these materials through human hands, and the shared passage of time that is directly manifested in the textile, speaking to themes of sustainability, resourcefulness, and community resilience in the face of economic and environmental challenges. This large-scale work reflects the global impact of consumer culture and its sensitivity to the cultural, social, and political context of Africa in a dynamic manner.
Marguerite Humeau, The Honey Holder, 2023
© Marguerite Humeau. Photo © White Cube (Eva Herzog)
Courtesy of the artist and White Cube

Marguerite Humeau ( Galleries 9-10 )

The Brewer, The Guardian of Termitomyces, Fallen Leaf II, The Honey Holder
Collective Effervescence, 2023

Known for her diverse and interdisciplinary artistic practice, the work of contemporary French artist Marguerite Humeau often blurs the boundaries between art and mythology. Through the investigation of speculative bodies of knowledge, Humeau explores themes such as the origin of life, ancient civilizations, and the relationship between humans and animals. Her sculptural works often explore the relationship between non-human creatures and their environment, highlighting the interconnectedness of all living things.

The complex systems and methods of communication that insects employ in order to thrive in their ecosystems can be understood as both formally and conceptually insightful, making Humeau’s sculptures – which contemplate the essence of these perceived creatures – stand out and come to life. Often incorporating elements of sound, light, and scent into her installations, she combines traditional media such as sculpture, drawing, and installation with meticulous research and thoughtful storytelling in simulations of the secret life within insect communities seen from a collapsing human society, offering the viewer a premonition of future gatherings where newly formed groups are in the process of synchronizing with each other.
Yagi Yuna 35.52899496960655, 135.80684021577034 2023.5.11, 2023/ From “Passes”
Collection of the artist ©Yagi Yuna

Yuna Yagi ( In front of Gallery 11 )

The Series of “Passes”, 2024

The term “miketsukuni” refers to the regions where marine products and other foods consumed by the Imperial family in ancient times were delivered to the Imperial Court. The Manyoshu contains poems that express admiration for how the Ise, Shima, and Awaji Provinces fulfilled this function. Wooden manuscripts from the Nara period (710-794) and the Engishiki (a detailed set of codes and regulations from the mid-Heian period, 794-1185) show that Wakasa was a province that made such gifts (minie) to the Imperial Court. Even today, the route known as the “Saba Kaido” (Mackerel Road) is still marked on maps as a line showing where this human traffic occurred. Yuna Yagi has been working with chef Atsushi Nakahigashi for two years since 2021, capturing in delicate, translucent photography the rich bounty of ingredients associated with the Saba Kaido, such as Wakasa guji tilefish, drunken mackerel, Kumagawa arrowroot, and Kintoki carrots, as well as the scenery that represents the seasonal changes that accompany the repetitions and cycles of the natural world. This series of 50 works reminds us that human activities are not composed of dots: rather, they constantly shift and interact with each other as a beautiful web connecting time and space, as if we were actually walking along the “Mackerel Road.”
Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Nyinyilki, 2010
Private collection
© The Estate of Sally Gabori / Copyright Agency Australia

Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori( Gallery 11 )

Nyinyilki, 2010
Dibirdibi Country, 2008
Dibirdibi Country, 2009
Sweers Island, 2008
Birmuyingathi Maali NETTA LOOGATHA, Mirdidingkingathi Jurwunda SALLY GABORI,
Warthadangathi Bijarrba ETHEL THOMAS, Thunduyingathi Bijarrb MAY MOODOONUTHI,
Kuruwarriyingathi Bijarrb PAULA PAUL, Wirrngajingathi Bijarrb DAWN NARANATJIL,
Rayarriwarrtharrbayingat AMY LOOGATHA

Sally Gabori is an Indigenous Australian artist best known for her vibrant land and sea scape paintings pertaining to her cultural beliefs of her native Bentinck Island, Queensland. She launched her career as a painter after turning 80 years old, developing a style characterized by bold colors unfolding across unique rhythms and patterns that are quite different from the pointillism, line, and geometric motifs found in traditional Aboriginal painting. Focusing on her people, the Kaiadilt, Gabori depicts the land, sea and sky, inherited by their Aboriginal ancestors and passed down from one generation to the next, as if looking down on the Earth from the perspective of a bird in the sky. Her vibrant and vital body of work is a powerful expression of her personal life and the cultural story of her people, filled with empathy for them and nature.
Mark Manders, Composition with Four Yellow Verticals, 2017-2019
Collection of the 21st Centruy Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
©Mark MANDERS
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Mark Manders ( Gallery 11 )

Composition with Four Yellow Verticals, 2017-2019
Composition with Yellow Vertical, 2019-2020
Composition With All Existing Words, 2005-2022
Composition with Two Colours, 2005-2020

Mark Manders has been creating installations, sculptures, works on paper and drawings since 1986, in line with his concept of “self-portrait as a building.” These works are seen as metaphors for imaginary buildings, divided into separate “rooms” that have no exact shape or size, and no sense of a temporal beginning or end. Based on this concept, Manders uses familiar materials such as clay, bronze, and wood to create statues that appear more fragile than the actual materials would suggest. Most of these unfinished or broken bronze figures can be seen as reflections of the uncertainties and ambiguities of human existence, as well as the vaguely anxious and bleak outlook people have in our time. These works, interwoven with each other like a mesh of unidentifiable places, times, and figures, lead the viewer into a mixture of tranquility and disquiet.
Sam Falls, Petrichor, 2023
Private collection
©Sam Falls

Sam Falls ( Gallery 12 )

Midnight Rainbow, Live Forever, Petrichor, Night Music, 2023

Sam Falls’ canvas works make use of natural elements such as sunlight, rain, and wind to place plants on canvas and leave them outdoors for weeks at a time. This approach produces a symbiotic relationship between the environment and the artwork, blurring the line between traditional artistic creation and the forces of nature. Through this unique process, Falls explores themes of impermanence, transience, and the passage of time. A more important consideration in thinking about his work, however, is his emphasis on the act of creation as a form of artistic expression as much as the final product, and the embracing of spontaneity and improvisation in his practice.
Tiffany Chung,
reconstructing an exodus history: boat trajectories from Vietnam and flight routes from refugee camps and of ODP cases, 2020
Installation view: “Lines ―Aligning your consciousness with the flow”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2024

Tiffany Chung ( Gallery 14 )

reconstructing an exodus history: boat trajectories from Vietnam and flight routes
from refugee camps and of ODP cases, 2020
If Water Has Memories, 2022
Terra Rouge: entangled landscape of circular earthwork sites,
rubber plantations, abandoned airfields, 2022
Terra Rouge Circular Earthwork Study No.7, 2022

Tiffany Chung (b.1969- Vietnam/USA) is globally noted for her interdisciplinary practice, cultivated through rigorous research and qualitative analysis into the history, culture, ecology, and landscape archaeology of different locales—spanning from cities to continents, from ancient to recent times. Chung’s work traces the complex entanglements of socio-political, economic, and environmental processes, entwined in conflicts, climate related events, and human migrations. Such entanglements are depicted in her Terra Rouge series of works on paper, which show traces of the [2300-300 BC] Neolithic Circular Earthworks’ earthen walls in the southwest region of Vietnam, with 19th century French colonialists’ rubber plantations, as well as abandoned airfields from the Vietnam War. Using the tool of mapping and retrieving governmental and intragovernmental correspondence cables from the UNHCR Archives, reconstructing an exodus history charts the sea and land escape routes and the Orderly Departure Program trajectories of post-1975 Vietnamese refugees to all over the globe, including Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. In If Water Has Memories, Chung suggests that water holds certain memories including sediments or substances dissolved in it, such as human body’s physical matter. Based on UNHCR records and coordinates of locations of pirate attacks on Vietnamese refugee boats in the Gulf of Thailand, Chung’s video installation takes us to the site of historical trauma with a symbolic burial at sea for those assaulted and lost their lives in the water. The work reminds us not only of the complex experience of forced migration, but also of the humanity buried underneath the inhumanity in our world through these gestures of remembrance and healing.
Oksana Pasaiko,
Short Sad Text (based on the border of two countries),
2023-2024
Collection of the artist
©Oksana Pasaiko

Oksana Pasaiko ( Around Gallery 14 )

Short Sad Text (based on the border of two countries), 2023-2024

The obscurity of Oksana Pasaiko, whose biographical details are difficult to trace except that she was born in Ruthenia in 1982, is entirely intentional, and her creations extend to the artist’s very existence. When she participated in Manifesta 5 in 2004, she asked for her exhibition catalogue biography to read: “in accordance with the artist’s wishes, no details will be published about her life.” Short Sad Text (based on the border of two countries) is a piece of soap with strands of human hair fixed to it, a metaphorical representation of disputed borders. Ruthenia is not an official state, but a region of Eastern Europe sandwiched between Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine. Even though forests, mountains, and oceans are also not individual entities with inherently separate borders, the act of division by artificial national borderlines is closely intertwined with the wars and conflicts that Eastern European history has faced over the centuries.
Eugenia Raskopoulos, re-ma(r)king, 2010
©Eugenia Raskopoulos

Eugenia Raskopoulos ( Around Gallery 14 )

re-ma(r)king, 2010

Eugenia Raskopoulos uses a variety of media, including photography, video, and installation, to explore how marks (signs) and gestures can carry meaning and convey personal or cultural narratives. The title re-ma(r)king suggests a process of reinterpreting or re-imagining existing marks and symbols, highlighting her interest in the ways meaning is constructed and communicated through visual language. These lines represent paths of movement, growth, and connection, while the yarn symbolizes the threads that weave through different aspects of life. Marking and making represent traces of human activity in relation to the environment, while individuals in turn participate in the ongoing process of world-making through their daily lives.
Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano, Falling possibilities, 2009
Collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales
©Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano

Gabriella Mangano & Silvana Mangano ( Around Gallery 14 )

Falling possibilities, 2009

Gabriella and Silvana Mangano have crafted a unique aesthetic in their video works, condensed into private and intimate gestures. In Falling possibilities, the two sisters’ arms move as if they are painting in space, while the tape becomes entwined around their hands, tracing a graceful dance with quick gestures. The tape constantly connects Gabriella and Silvana as it is exchanged between them amid these movements. The work begins with a ballet-like grace and movements that seem to engage in a kind of mutual response to each other. As time goes on, however, the exchange becomes more tense. Since gestures are not isolated acts, but are intricately linked to culture, history, and embodied experience, they also provide an opportunity to recognize the interconnectedness of social norms, personal identity, and past experiences.
up:
SUPERFLEX, Power Toilet Death Masks, 2024　
Installation view: “Lines ―Aligning your consciousness with the flow”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2024

down:
SUPERFLEX, Vertical Migration, 2021
Installation view: “Lines ―Aligning your consciousness with the flow”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2024

SUPERFLEX ( Public Zone )

Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Reuter Christiansen, Rasmus Rosengren Nielsen
Power Toilet Death Masks, 2024
Vertical Migration, 2021

Power Toilet Death Masks features a series of molds for casting death masks of sanitary fixtures: toilets, faucets, toilet paper holders with toilet rolls, tiles, and flush buttons. Each mold represents a toilet at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, a private space accessible only to a limited number of people at the headquarters with the authority to do so, and the sculptures, cast in unfired clay, are fragmentary analogues of this space. These sculptures will be replicated using Kanazawa clay and can be displayed in any number and in any combination. By reconstructing the site of daily excretion of the toilet as a public domain, this work confronts the notion of authoritative architecture, questioning the relationship between original and copy, exclusivity and inclusivity, and ultimately the infrastructure of power and its everyday manifestations.
With the support of: Kanazawa College of Art, Hirotake Imanishi, Rintaro Koiwai

Vertical Migration is a video work based on the idea that humans are participants in an ecological system. Due to rising sea levels, we will migrate vertically to higher elevations and skyscrapers in the coming centuries. The story of jellyfish and other social organisms, collections of multiple beings that live underwater, is also our story. While flesh-and-blood humans cannot travel through these jet-black depths, we can observe and examine them to recognize that we are connected, our actions affect each other, and we share a common destiny. Sensors allow these organisms to move away from us as we approach them, and if we humbly maintain our distance, the organisms will eventually make their way slowly across the screen.
［Reference image］
Henrique Oliveira, Corupira, 2023
©Henrique Oliveira
Galeria Millan (São Paulo)
Galerie G.P.&N. Vallois (Paris and New York)

Henrique Oliveira ( Honda-Dori Entrance )

Mar Morto (Dead Sea), 2024

Henrique Oliveira often sources discarded furniture and wood to be used as materials for his works from construction sites and other urban environments, transforming them into sculptures and dynamic installations and giving them a new lease of life. In contrast to the consequences of modernization, which has brought processed wood from natural trees into artificial spaces that have been developed from nature, Oliveira’s use of scrap wood has multiple layers of meaning, including a reflection on consumption, waste, and the relationship between humans and the environment. These winding, organic forms still seem to be growing as they partially dominate the space, blurring the boundaries of the natural world. Here, Oliveira presents a new work at the entrance door of the building, where the museum’s interior and exterior are made visible by human traffic.
Sarah Sze, The Art of Losing, 2004
Collection of the 21st Centruy Museum of
Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
© Sarah SZE

Sarah Sze ( Stairs )

The Art of Losing, 2004

Many of Sarah Sze’s works are delicate and exquisite installations that combine commonplace everyday objects such as paper, metal, wood, plastic, and found objects like bottles, chairs, and light bulbs as materials. The Art of Losing suggests a state of constant flux, as if objects are in the process of being assembled or disassembled, in a stunning reflection on the duality of the concerns of chaos and order that Sze explores, as well as how objects can be arranged and composed to create a sense of both complexity and balance. This is a work that explores how we perceive and navigate the world around us along various lines as it traces complex structures and flirts with the tension between chaos and order.

Credit

Organized by:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation), Japan Arts Council, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

Grants from:

Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation

Sponsored by：
NOZAKI Co., Ltd.

In Cooperation with:

YAMADA PHOTO PROCESS Co., Ltd., Kanazawa College of Art

Supported by：
THE HOKKOKU SHIMBUN