The exhibition's KeyWords—"everyday," "vernacular," "relationship," and "media." Today, Japan has achieved a transition from an industrial society producing cars and buildings to a post-industrial society providing services and information. New problems have also emerged—an aging population and declining birthrate, the hollowing out of rural regions, and growing numbers of solitary deaths. To alleviate or resolve such problems, attempts are being made to build "relationship" among people and to rediscover the attractive features of rural "vernacular." Meanwhile, it has become an age of proliferating personal media, characterized by smart-phones and "always-on connection" to online social networking. Through works by 10 artists and artist groups who live and work in these times, we explore the art of now."/>
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Open

EXHIBITION

The Contemporary 1

In Our Time: Art in Post-industrial Japan

2015.4.25 (Sat.) -
2015.8.30 (Sun.)

Information

Period :
2015.4.25 (Sat.) - 2015.8.30 (Sun.)
10:00 - 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays)
Venue :
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Gallery 7-14, Long-Term Project Room, Design Gallery, Project Room
Closed:
Mondays, May 7, Jul 21 (Open on May 4, Jul 20, Aug 17)
Admission:
Adult: ¥1,000 (¥800)
University: ¥800 (¥600)
Elem/ JH/ HS: ¥400 (¥300)
65 and over: ¥800

[Combi Ticket for "Architecture since 3.11"]
Adult: ¥1,700 (¥1,400)
University: ¥1,400 (¥1,100)
Elem/ JH/ HS: ¥700 (¥600)
65 and over: ¥1,400

*( ) indicate advance ticket and group rates (20 or more).
For More Information:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Phone: +81-76-220-2800
Facsimile: +81-76-220-2802
E-Mail: info@kanazawa21.jp

About the Exhibition

In any era, the definition of "contemporary" changes as time goes by. Already, 10 years have passed since this museum opened with a mission to present contemporary art, and hence, we are taking this occasion—our 10th anniversary—to look freshly at art now. Under the theme "The Contemporary," we will hold three exhibitions. The first, "In Our Time: Art in Post-industrial Japan," will focus on Japan and feature 10 artists and artist groups principally active since 2000.
The exhibition's KeyWords—"everyday," "vernacular," "relationship," and "media." Today, Japan has achieved a transition from an industrial society producing cars and buildings to a post-industrial society providing services and information. New problems have also emerged—an aging population and declining birthrate, the hollowing out of rural regions, and growing numbers of solitary deaths. To alleviate or resolve such problems, attempts are being made to build "relationship" among people and to rediscover the attractive features of rural "vernacular." Meanwhile, it has become an age of proliferating personal media, characterized by smart-phones and "always-on connection" to online social networking. Through works by 10 artists and artist groups who live and work in these times, we explore the art of now.

Related Events

Pre-event DOMMUNE: THE 100 JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS Sputniko! X UKAWA Naohiro
Date/time: Friday April 24, 2015 19:00-21:30
19:00-21:00 "DOMMUNE: THE 100 JAPANESE CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS" Sputniko! X UKAWA Naohiro
21:00-22:00 "DOMMUNE: ALTERNATIVE ZTREAMING" LIVE: Tavito Nanao
Venue: Lecture Hall, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Capacity: First 90 arrivals
Admission: ¥1,000

Artists Profile

The objects of the dispute, those whereabouts 2015
© OOKUBO Ari

OOKUBO Ari

Born in Tokyo in 1974. Lives and works in Tokyo. Fascinated by the surrealistic world of daydreams and delusions,
OOKUBO Ari pulls story elements from them for development in paintings, sculptures, and installations. Since 2008, she has actively invited interventions by others—having them eat or walk, for example—in works using paintings, objects, and photographs based on short stories inspired by personal experience. Viewers entering Ookubo’s construction suddenly find themselves in a space that evades definition as reality, alternative reality, super reality, or non-reality. (KITADE Chieko)

Venue: Gallery 7

Games, Dance & the Constructions (Nowhere Sculpture) #1 2014

KANEUJI Teppei

Born in Kyoto in 1978. Lives and works in Kyoto. Gathering everyday plastic products, along with figurines, magazine clippings and objects of all kinds, KANEUJI Teppei fuses them together—or in some cases transforms them—to create sculptures, installations, and even video works evoking scenes of endless flux. His dense clusters of objects in varying assemblages serve to erase the objects’ original meaning. Kaneuji fascinates viewers with a vision of the world that commutes between the existing and unknown. (KUROSAWA Hiromi)

Venue: Gallery 8

DJ JOHN CAGE AND THE 1000 WORLD WIDE DJS 2014

UKAWA Naohiro

Born in Kagawa prefecture in 1968. Lives and works in Kyoto. DOMMUNE, launched by UKAWA Naohiro in 2010, is both a live streaming channel aired on weekday evenings and a work-in-progress art project. The Tokyo studio that Ukawa operates on weekdays—handling everything himself, from booking prospective guests and engineering video and voice transmissions to posting Tweets live during the program—transmits a radical form of “contemporary art” to the world. DOMMUNE, which delivers an immensity of information to listeners seeking out contemporary art experiences, is an artwork of vast scale that provides a communication node to countless members of an existing cultural community. (KUROSAWA Hiromi)

Venue: Gallery 9, Project Room

setting the butterfly free 2014

KOGANEZAWA Takehito

Born in Tokyo in 1974. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany. After graduating from the Department of Imaging Arts, Musashino Art University, KOGANEZAWA Takehito moved to Germany. He has since worked as a Berlin based artist. His wide-ranging creations, which encompass installations, performances, and drawings, employ ordinary objects taken from everyday life. By giving them movement and sound, Koganezawa reveals the mystery and beauty hidden in daily life or else, with a subtle shift in perspective, its strangeness and humor. The performative works using video and light he has actively undertaken in recent years represent an endeavor to explore the character of light and the images that light enables. (NAKATA Koichi)

Venue: Gallery 10

IZUMI Taro

Born in Nara prefecture in 1976. Lives and works in Tokyo. As compact, inexpensive video cameras have come into general everyday use, IZUMI Taro has used them in creating installation works that toss video camera, viewer, and the surrounding world into confusion. Normally, a picture screen displays a faraway world or world of the past, beyond our reach. Izumi, however, after studying this seemingly unpassable boundary, endeavors to destroy it. Is it live or recorded? The order of time grows confused, and the viewer becomes caught up inside the work. (WASHIDA Meruro)

Venue: Gallery 11

Diverse Gods 2013 photo: SEYA Hiromi (FLOT)

MISE Natsunosuke

Born in Nara prefecture in 1973. Lives and works in Yamagata prefecture. Originally based as an artist in Kyoto and Nara, MISE Natsunosuke around 2009 began teaching at a university in Yamagata. He has since taken a folkloric approach to the land and traditional customs of Tohoku in his pursuit of the possibilities of contemporary art. Combining spontaneous images created by dripping sumi ink or using decalcomania (decal transfer) with detailed motifs rendered with a fine brush, he pastes on fragments of Japanese paper one by one, composes, and develops the picture. Depicted are not only distinctive scenes of a specific region; the picture also reflects the painter’s profound awareness, as he works to express the origins of an expanding universe we cannot actually see. (UCHIRO Hiroyuki)

Venue: Gallery12

TOZEN 2014 photo: KAKURAI Kazuhito
© TABAIMO Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

Tabaimo

Born in Hyogo prefecture in 1975. Lives and works in Nagano prefecture. Since receiving the Kirin Contemporary Award Best Artwork Award for Japanese Kitchen, Tabaimo has used multiple screens like stage props to compose spatial installations that physically envelop the viewer. Depicted are sections of the human imagination revealing an honest sense of alienation in everyday life as an individual belonging to society. By intentionally not presenting a clear message or story, Tabaimo is able to evoke the gender problems, generational problems, and social issues each viewer personally struggles with. Her artist name "Tabaimo" is a nickname given her by a friend because she was the second of three sisters in the Tabata family ("Taba" plus "little sister," imooto). (TAKAHASHI Ritsuko)

Venue: Galleery 13

The Moonwalk Machine – Selena’s Step 2013
Photo: Rai ROYAL / Courtesy: SCAI THE BATHHOUSE

Sputniko!

Born in Tokyo in 1985. Lives and works in Boston, USA. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics and Information Systems Engineering, Imperial College London, Sputniko! received her M.A. in the Design Interactions Programme at the Royal College of Art. Feeling a strong interest in how technology impacts society and the way people live, she speaks openly about gender issues and social taboos through video and music works. Sputniko!’s style of examining even social problems in a light pop music format evokes a new image of a human being who lightly and knowledgably adapts to her times. Since 2013, she has worked as an assistant professor at MIT Media Lab. (YONEDA Seiko)

Venue: Gallery 14

“YAGI Lyota Exhibition Science/Fiction”
Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery 2014-2015
© YAGI Lyota photo: OMOTE Nobutada

YAGI Lyota

Born in Ehime prefecture in 1980. Lives and works in Kyoto. Owing to the advance of information transmission technology, we in the 21st century are able to share experiences with others even when not physically near them. YAGI Lyota, to the contrary, uses conventional spatial experiences based on physical closeness. Within such experiences, he amplifies the sense of incongruity we feel at unexpected moments in everyday life and liberates human actions from the everyday context. Yagi creates artworks that open the circuit of our five senses, such as by allowing us to see sound or hear shape. (TATEMATSU Yumiko)

Venue: Long -Term Project Room (5/26 - 9/6)

© ESO/C. Malin

ALMA Project
(National Astronomical
Observatory of Japan +
PARTY + Qosmo +
Epiphany Works)

The ALMA Telescope, located in desert 5000m high in the mountains of Chile, is the largest high-performance radio telescope ever created. It is operated jointly by 21 nations including Japan. Using radio waves emitted by heavenly bodies, it seeks to unravel mysteries surrounding the birth of stars, evolution of the Milky Way, and origins of life in the universe. ALMA MUSIC BOX is an artwork in which rising young artists convert to sound and image the radio waves captured by the ALMA Telescope. The mysterious radio waves emitted by the dying star R Sculptorius some 950 light years from the earth are converted into music box discs (one for each of their many frequencies) and presented as an installation of sound and image. (NAKATA Koichi)

Venue: Design Gallery (5/26 - 11/15)

Catalogue

Scheduled release: April 25, 2015
Specifications: A5 size, 148 pages, bilingual Japanese and English
Design & bookmaking: HOSHINO Tetsuya (Tokyo Pistol Co., LTD)
Publication: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Essay contributors:
Introductory text: UCHIDA Tatsuru
"Relationship": HOSHINO Futoshi (scholar of aesthetics and representational culture)
"Everyday": KITADA Akihiro (sociologist)
"Media": TSUDA Daisuke (journalist)
"Vernacular": FUKUZUMI Ren (art critic)

Organizers

Organized by:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)