Collection Exhibition 1｜21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Collection Exhibition 1

2024.6.22 (Sat.) - 9.29 (Sun.)

Information

Period:

2024.6.22 (Sat.) - 9.29 (Sun.)
10:00-18:00（until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays）

Venue:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Gallery 1 to 6, 13 and Long-Term Project Room, Project Room, Design Gallery
*Project Room until September 8 (Sun)

Admission:

Adults: ¥450 (¥360)
Students: ¥310 (¥240)
18 and under: free
65 and over: ¥360
*Fees in parentheses are for groups of 20 people or more and web tickets

Book tickets here

Closed:

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

For More Information:

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

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the museum’s opening, a large-scale collection exhibition to showcase the most important function of the museum — its collection — will be held throughout the year. The museum’s collection activities began in 2000, before the museum opened, and based on the curators’ research and studies, the museum has been constantly adding new works to the collection every year. The collection, which had approximately 200 items by the time of the museum’s opening, has now grown to approximately 4,200 items. This collection represents both the history of the museum and its identity. The three policies governing the collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa are: (1) works produced since 1980 that propose new values, (2) works influencing such new values and providing points of reference in terms of art history since 1900, and (3) works rich in new creativity closely associated with the Kanazawa area. This collection is both a mirror of the changing times and a repository of the history of artistic expression that has been accumulated and woven together. The collection exhibition is a platform for looking at the world, and to think about and discuss the past, present, and future. It offers us an opportunity to look back over the past 20 years and discuss the future.

Main works in the exhibition

SHIMIZU Akira
Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10 1963
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H167.2 × W134.3cm
© SHIMIZU Akira　photo: SAIKI Taku

SHIMIZU Akira (Gallery 1)

On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday
Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10 (1963)

Born in Toyama, Japan in 1936. Lives and works in Saitama.
After graduating from Painting course of Kanazawa College of Art in 1958, Shimizu Akira became friends with avant-garde artists of his generation and produced objects, happenings and other works that went far beyond the accepted notions of art. Later, his involvement with HIJIKATA Tatsumi led to his working on stage design, posters and costumes for performances of ‘Butoh.’ The works he made after 1970 – fantasy-like creations comprising cut-up photographs– reflect the landscapes of the Japan Sea coast area where his hometown is located. While Shimizu has been active in a wide range of fields, he has always sought to reconcile the methodology of the avant-garde with more indigenous elements.

Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10 was inspired by the test chart for detecting redgreen color blindness. Red and green circles in various sizes are arranged on a white canvas to form a perfect round that touches the rectangle shape of the canvas. It appears as though they are arranged randomly, but they are in fact arranged to reveal the Arabic number 10 in tones of blue when seen from afar. Studied up close, we can see that there are pasted images of pinups of blond women, as well as images showing the bright and affluent urban life of early 1960s America. Although it has elements of graphic design, the artist’s sense of humor can be perceived from the way he has chosen the gravure images and how he has combined the illusions produced from looking at the chart as well as the design of the color blindness test chart.
YAMAZAKI Tsuruko Work 1963
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H183 × W92cm
© YAMAZAKI Tsuruko
photo: SAIKI Taku

YAMAZAKI Tsuruko (Gallery 1)

On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday
Work (1963), Work (1964)
On view from August 14, Wednesday until September 29, Sunday
Work (2004), Work (2004), Work (2004)

Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1925. Died in Hyogo in 2019.
Yamazaki Tsuruko was a founding member of the Gutai Group, which was formed in 1954. She later participated in the establishment of the Artist Union and had taken part in solo and group exhibitions where she had presented a range of works including three-dimensional pieces made using sheets of tin, performances, and paintings. Throughout her decades-long career, Yamazaki had produced work on the themes of real and virtual images and sight/cognition/recreation that expresses her unique outlook on the relationship between the individual and the world.

Two pieces of Work from the 1960s (on view until August 12) are paintings that combine geometric compositions with organic forms. The paintings, filled with a variety of colors and forms, exude an overwhelming presence. Pieces of Work from 2004 (on view from August 14) were created by pouring industrial dyes onto tin sheets. This is a revival of Yamazaki's early style of production after half a century. Like a mirror, the tin surfaces, layered with multiple colors, reflect our image as we face them, drawing us into the world of the work.
KIMURA Taiyo Feel Your Gravity 2005
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
© KIMURA Taiyo
photo: SAIKI Taku

KIMURA Taiyo (Gallery 2)

Untitled (1997-2004),
Hatarake Hatarake (Work Work) (2005),
Friction / Where is a Lavatory? (2005),
Feel Your Gravity (2005),
Life's An Ocean/Dead Finks Don't Talk (2007)

Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1970. Lives and works there.
Kimura studied oil painting at an art academy but eventually changed to installations and three-dimensional work. He began exhibiting artworks from the mid-1990s and, from 1999, twice undertook art residences in Germany. Since his student days, Kimura has recorded his ideas and dreams in drawing books or on video as a source for the creation of art. His works, which employ familiar, everyday materials and situations, feature a blend of distinctive humor, amiability, unexpectedness and uncanniness that often induces visceral discomfort in the viewer. In this way, Kimura endeavors to communicate, directly to our physical sensibilities, the absurdity that underlies ordinary, everyday life and to reveal the true essence of things.

In Friction / Where is a Lavatory?, the hands of a cluster of clocks pushed together collide and obstruct one another, and the viewer experiences the vibrations and mechanical noise produced as the clock hands are prevented from turning, holding back the progress of time. In Feel Your Gravity, where many eyes cut out from a women’s magazine are pasted onto one of the magazine’s pages, the artist examines the mob psychology of people and their instinct to gravitate toward systems and surveillance.
Carsten HÖLLER Kanazawa Sliding Doors 2004
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H230 × W256 × D1500cm　
© Carsten HÖLLER　photo: © ANZAÏ

Carsten HÖLLER (Outside of Gallery 2)

Kanazawa Sliding Doors (2004)

Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1961. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.
After studying both plant pathology and agricultural entomology and obtaining his doctorate, Höller began to be active as an artist in the latter half of the 1980s. By making the most of different media, his expression is wide-ranging from a single three-dimensional piece to a large-scale installation occupying the whole space. His style on the whole is scientific and based on highly developed technology. We can fully realize through our experience of his work the unreliability of our perceptions and doubts about reality. Consequently, our stirred sensitivity is stimulated and we can encounter aesthetic experiences even further.

Kanazawa Sliding Doors consists of five automatic doors. These double doors set in a corridor between two exhibition rooms are completely mirrored, so that we find ourselves being in the world surrounded by mirrors each time we pass through the doors. The opening and closing movement of automatic doors almost brings us back to daily life in a moment, but passing through the doors a few times, we repeatedly step into the same kind of space. When someone unexpectedly comes from the other side of the door, however, the mechanical repetition of this experience is broken, and it arouses our feelings of all sorts. As plural visitors are involved, unexpected events occur in the system structured by the artist. As a result, our experience is enriched through this work that makes the most of the feature of the museum corridor where people come and go.
YAMAMURA Shinya work 1998-1 1998
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H10.8 × W4.3 × D2.2cm　©YAMAMURA Shinya
photo: SUEMASA Mareo

YAMAMURA Shinya (Gallery 3)

On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday
work 1998-1 (1998), work 1998-2 (1998), work 1998-3 (1998),
work 2000-1 (2000), work 2000-2 (2000), work 2001-1 (2001),
work 2001-2 (2001), work 2001-4 (2001), work 2001-6 (2001)

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1960. Lives and works in Kanazawa, Ishikawa.
Strongly impressed by MATSUDA Gonroku’s lacquer work that depicted a white egret using the eggshell technique, Yamamura decided to pursue lacquer art. He studied lacquer at Kanazawa College of Art and at its graduate school, participating in numerous group exhibitions while at college. After finishing the graduate course, he participated in many international exhibitions and won recognition.

The characteristic of his works is that each work remarkably realizes varied expressions in a form that is small enough to be held on a palm of the hand. He is also characterized by bringing out possibilities of ever-changing material lacquer by his own hand in a careful yet bold manner, and he fuses various cultural roots in different regions and periods into abstract expression. His “Work” series is a group of works made by using various lacquer techniques: ‘maki-e’ (lacquer sprinkled with gold or silver), ‘hyomon’ (metal-sheet inlay), ‘rankaku’ (eggshell), ‘raden’ (mother-of pearl inlay), etc. An animated microcosm is condensed in each of these small works. Some works appeal glossy beauty of lacquer, showing serene luster of vermillion or black lacquer, while other works utilize lacquer as an adhesive for covering the surface with eggshells and turban shells to bring out different charms of various materials. He joins together such heterogeneous materials as brass, wood piece and deer hair thus stimulating viewers’ senses and enabling them to freely expand their imagination. While lacquer is unable to keep its shape by itself, he shows us infinite possibilities of the form, nature and impression of lacquer when it is combined with different materials.
TERAI Naoji Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e 1981
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H6 × φ8.5cm　©TERAI Naonori
photo: SAIKI Taku

TERAI Naoji (Gallery 3)

On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday
Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e (1981)

Born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan in 1912. Died there in 1998.
Terai specialized in the lacquerware section of the Ishikawa Prefecture Industrial School, then entered the lacquerware course in the craft section of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. His teachers were ROKKAKU Shisui, MATSUDA Gonroku, and YAMAZAKI Kakutaro. He also studied the application of lacquer to metal at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research. His career as a lacquer artist began when his work was accepted for the First Japan Art Exhibition (Nitten) in 1946. He earned a reputation for delicate and richly expressive lacquerware created with the technique of eggshell inlay. He was also known for his research in electrolytic processing of aluminum forms for application of lacquer. In 1983, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Fourth Class. In 1985 he was designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property.

In Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e, which Terai created in his late 60’s, he creates a subtle color by applying colored lacquer to the reverse side of the white eggshells, and draws butterflies and flowers on the body of the tea caddy by using maki-e techniques such as hyomon’ (metal-sheet inlay), ‘raden’ (mother-of pearl inlay), and ‘kimpun maki’ (lacquer sprinkled with gold). In many of his works, his skillful technique of eggshell and excellent sense of modeling express the motifs with depth and emotion.
Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo
Cross, sarasa design, maki-e 2007
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H13 × W9.5 × D4.2cm
©Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo
photo: WATANABE Osamu

Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo (Gallery 3)

On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday
Cross, sarasa design, maki-e (2007),
Sacred egg casket, firefly design, maki-e (2010)

Born in Ishikawa, Japan in 1952. Lives and works there.
Kitamura Tatsuo, a lacquer craft studio head and producer, works under the name Unryuan. Among the various Japanese lacquer techniques, Kitamura especially excels in mother-of-pearl (‘raden’) and gold lacquer (‘maki-e’). He has invested great effort in recreating lost techniques of using mother-of-pearl and gold lacquer, such as were used in Inro cases and the Somada technique of fine shell inlay. Besides creating his own original works at the Unryuan studio, he has in recent years also devoted energy to restoring traditional items used by Edo period (1615-1868) feudal lords, such as ‘jusshukobako’ incense game sets and ‘kai-oke’ clamshell game buckets. Restoring such items requires a range of sophisticated craft techniques, including woodworking, cord tassel, lacquer painting, and porcelain ceramics. These projects are undertaken as a group in order to pass down the techniques to younger generation artisans. Kitamura also actively engages in collaborations with overseas name brands and independent watch makers, such as the Waltham watch company, America’s oldest brand of watch with a history of 160 years.

Minutely cut and inlaid mother-of-pearl and cut-metal foil (‘kirikane’) are featured in many of Unryuan’s lacquer works. The works display profuse, detailed decoration and move us with the beauty of their metal foil and mother-of-pearl patterns. The technique employed, ‘saiei maki-e’ (color-shadow gold lacquer), uses dark and light contrasts to impart a three-dimensional visual effect to the traditional Somada technique of mother-of-pearl and cut-metal foil. An original technique created by Unryuan, saiei maki-e manifests colors of profound richness, depending on the angle of light. Somada-zaiku is a technique of extremely detailed burnished maki-e established by SOMADA Kiyosuke, an artisan invited from Kyoto by the Toyama clan in the 17th century. It was later lost in the 19th century. Unryuan has recreated this technique, imparting a contemporary feel to it under the name saiei maki-e, and fully employed it in the works shown. Contemporary design born from traditional Japanese craft yet unrestrained by Japanese style is an Unryuan hallmark reflecting the studio’s unique world view.
FUNAKOSHI Katsura
Memory Being Supported Once 2001
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H109 × W64 × D35cm　©FUNAKOSHI Katsura
photo: NAKAMICHI Atsushi / Nacása & Partners

FUNAKOSHI Katsura (Gallery 3)

On view from August 14, Wednesday
until September 29, Sunday
Memory Being Supported Once (2001),
Drawing for “Memory Being Supported Once” (2001)

Born in Iwate, Japan in 1951. Died in March 2024.
Since the 1980s, Funakoshi Katsura has produced wooden, half-length sculptures of people. He has consistently used the same technique, which is to fashion the bodies and heads from camphor wood, paint them, and insert colored marble for the eyes. The harmony between the smoothness and delicateness of the heads and the vigorousness of the chisel marks left all over the sculptures is a distinctive feature of Funakoshi’s work. The sculptures, which possess a kind of spirituality more commonly associated with Shinto and Buddhist images rather than figurative sculptures, exude an air of tranquillity and nobility.

Funakoshi’s work is characterized by the exquisite marriage of seemingly contradictory qualities, such as the balance between the smooth, delicate heads and the rough, vigorous bodies, and the warm yet refreshing atmosphere created by applying color to the wood in such a way that the grain is still visible. In Memory Being Supported Once, two heads are set on one body. The piece is based on a scene the artist, who played rugby as a student, witnessed during a rugby game. According to Funakoshi, he nursed the idea of turning this scene in which a forward suffering from concussion was helped off the pitch by a teammate into a work for more than 20 years. Many preparatory sketches for this sculpture survive, offering valuable insights into the process of trial and error that went into elements such as the composition, in which one figure embraces the other and in which the heads of the two figures are joined. Drawing for “Memory Being Supported Once” is one of the final sketches made before the sculpture was produced.
Beatriz MILHAZES Black Power 2003-2004
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H300 × W300cm　©Beatriz MILHAZES
photo: SAIKI Taku

Beatriz MILHAZES (Gallery 4)

The Blue House (2001), Black Power (2003-2004)

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1960. Lives and works there.
Since the 1980s, Beatriz Milhazes has established her own painting methodology and created a new manner of expression. At a glance, the vibrant juxtapositions of motifs that distinguish her paintings appear to be computer graphics-generated. She has nevertheless created her entire methodology herself through years of working trial and error. Milhazes has always placed emphasis in her work on her own spirit and physical sensibilities. Her works, which seem to overflow with diverse energy, continually open doors to new potential in contemporary painting expression.

In her method of production, Milhazes rarely employs preparatory sketches and begins working directly on the canvas. For the most part, what she paints on the canvas will constitute the background. She paints her motifs of flowers and geometric patterns on a plastic sheet and, after drying them, transfers the motif to the canvas. Although the overall picture is dominated by an impression of flatness, the residue of colors and varying sentiments and memories building up on plastic sheets used repeatedly over the years coincides with an aged peeling wall effect produced when the motif is peeled from the plastic sheet. Together with the countless motifs juxtaposed organically on the canvas, this engenders an emotionally chaotic world. The visual effect of these works, weakened in centrality through their use of many circles, curves, and other such motifs, couples with poetic titles like "The Blue House" and "Black Power" and strongly affects our sensibilities.
Andy WARHOL (Gallery 4)

Diamond Dust Shoes (1980-81)

Born in Pittsburgh, USA in 1928. Died in New York in 1987.
Born to Czechoslovakian immigrants, Andy Warhol studied commercial art at Carnegie Institute of Technology. In the mid-1950s he worked as a commercial designer in New York before beginning to make fine art in 1960. Warhol met with stunning success after employing the techniques of mechanical reproduction, such as silkscreen, to create images from popular culture. He also launched a magazine, created experimental films, produced music and conducted various projects across a wide range of media. The result was his exerting a massive influence on subculture.

Diamond Dust Shoes is from Warhol’s Retrospective series, which he began in 1979. In it he sampled motifs from his own best-known works. In 1955, when he was still working as a commercial designer, Warhol had been commissioned by shoemaker I. Miller to make a series of illustrations on the theme of ladies’ shoes. This work relates back to that very early motif. At first Warhol had considered making the work using diamond dust, but in order to maximize the sparkle that would emanate from the completed work, he ultimately settled on crushed glass. Thus, it was with shoes that Warhol made a name for himself as a commercial designer. Also, he named the drawings of shoes after celebrities. These pieces of fact suggest that he saw shoes as a symbol of fame and success. This idea is emphasized here, with combining the motif of shoes with the glitter of diamonds ‒ a symbol of wealth.
MURAKAMI Takashi (Gallery 4)

Cosmos (1998)

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1962. Lives and works in Tokyo and New York, USA.
Murakami Takashi studied Nihon-ga (Japanese-style painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he completed his doctorate in 1993. Since unveiling his works using Japanese-style painting and plastic models at his first solo show in 1989, Murakami has persistently challenged the context of Western dominated art by referencing culture peculiar to Japan as represented by the likes of anime, manga, pop-culture and otaku. His artistic practice extends to collaborations with the fashion industry, planning exhibitions, and presiding over the GEISAI art fair, among many other activities.

Cosmos links quintessentially classical subject matter in the form of flowers with character-themed elements such as anime and manga. The title derives from the fundamental principle of the universe, which is that everything has a spiral structure. The sense of weightlessness that stems from the work’s sheer frontality and flatness, and the airiness that pervades the flowers, which are reminiscent of a characterless smile, hint at a superficial sense of spaciousness as well as the unstable state of mind of contemporary people.
Damien HIRST (Gallery 4)

Untitled (2000)

Born in Bristol, UK in 1965. Lives and works in London and Devon.
While studying at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1988, Damien Hirst took the initiative in organizing an exhibition, “Freeze,” for fellow artists of his generation. In the late 1980s, his art works produced a sensation in the British contemporary art world, which had fallen into dormancy, and he became the most prominent figure in the world-renowned YBA (Young British Artists) phenomena. These works evince a style both harsh and peaceful, in which cruelty and beauty coexist. Multi-layered and filled with contradiction, Hirst’s art deals with issues close to the foundation of human existence.

Ever since his 1991 solo exhibition “In and Out of Love,” Damien Hirst has continually produced paintings of butterfly theme. In Untitled, Hirst has once again expressed his idea that “death can appear beautiful.” While having a heart shape expressive of love and life, the work is flecked with dead butterflies, a portion of whose wings have melded with the glossy pink canvas. The feelings of shock awoken by the image of dead animals mixes with a sense of wonder at the beauty of the brightly colored butterflies. Hirst’s stance of evoking life’s vigor by confronting us with the inescapable truth of death can also be understood from the work.
Luc TUYMANS Double Sun 2006
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H168 × W142cm　© Luc TUYMANS
photo: SAIKI Taku

Luc TUYMANS (Gallery 4)

Double Sun (2006)

Born in Mortsel, Belgium in 1958. Lives and works in Antwerp.
Luc Tuymans studied painting at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp from 1980-1982, and art history at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels from 1982-1986. Tuymans takes as his subject matter scenes that catch his eye either directly as part of everyday life or indirectly via TV, newspapers, and other media, portraying everything from ordinary everyday scenes to grand themes such as politics, religion, and history in a fragmentary, impersonal manner. As well, he often reconstructs fragments of images in his paintings by incorporating cinematic techniques such as cut ups, close ups, and montage.
These fragmented paintings highlight the purest aspects of, and aspects peculiar to, images hidden in everyday life.

Double Sun has a bold, clear-cut composition, and its ghostliness and floating sensation further emphasized by the colors and scumbling of the image. The motif of double sun, the symbol of the Jesuits, can also be interpreted as an inquiry into aspects of contemporary society such as the struggle for power characterized by the series of terrorist attacks. Precisely because this work is so peaceful and seemingly devoid of any kind of emotional expression, it evokes in the viewer an indeterminable sense of instability and uneasiness.
Gerhard RICHTER
Abstract Painting (CR 845-5) 1997
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H100 × W90cm　© Gerhard RICHTER
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Gerhard RICHTER (Gallery 4)

Abstract Painting (CR 845-5), (1997)
Abstract Painting (CR 845-8) (1997)

Born in Dresden, Germany in 1932. Lives and works in Cologne.
Gerhard Richter received his art education under the former East German regime, but was strongly influenced by abstract expressionism which he encountered during a trip to West Germany and moved to Düsseldorf six months before the Berlin Wall was erected. The overriding theme of his work has been ‘Schein’ (illusion, appearance, semblance), which he interprets as the foundation reflecting all existence, and he has continually crossed the boundaries between visibility and invisibility, photographs and paintings, reality and fabrication as part of his pursuit of ‘seeing,’ while at the same time applying his masterful painting technique to work in a variety of different styles.
In his Abstract Painting series, Gerhard Richiter creates multiple layers of color by combining paints in an improvisatory way and stretching and scraping them with a large spatula specially made by him. The paintings exude an overwhelming presence and show elements of the overriding theme of his work, ‘Schein’ (illusion, appearance, semblance), which he interprets as the foundation reflecting all existence.
SHIMABUKU
Something that Floats / Something that Sinks 2008
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable　© SHIMABUKU
photo: SAIKI Taku

SHIMABUKU (Gallery 5)

Something that Floats / Something that Sinks (2008)

Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1969. Lives and works in Okinawa.
While traveling extensively around the world from the early 1990s, Shimabuku has performed and made installations concerning a human way of life and new ways of communication. He participated in group exhibitions at Pompidou Centre in Paris, Hayward Gallery in London, and a number of international exhibitions such as Venice Biennale 2003 and São Paulo Biennale 2006. His solo exhibition was held at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2013.

In Something that Floats / Something that Sinks, vegetables selected from neighboring vegetable stores are carefully put into a water tank and, floating in the water, they are regenerated as ‘exhibits’ and meet visitors. They repeat floating up and sinking in the water, and before they go bad, they are replaced with fresh vegetables by the museum staff, who was told by the artist to eat them. In other words, the vegetables provide a motive for the artist, dealers, viewers and staff to communicate with each other ceaselessly during the exhibition period.
Zai Kuning
Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge 2016-2017
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable　© Zai Kuning
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Zai Kuning (Gallery 6)

Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge (2016-17)

Born in Singapore in 1964. Lives and works there.
Using a variety of techniques, including music, video, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installation, the artist presents works that recall the history of people who have come and gone across the waters of East Asia, regardless of national borders. Using natural materials such as rattan and thread, he conveys a powerful message through abstract imagery. He is also strongly interested in the physical act of filling time and space, such as by hardening his own past works with beeswax.

Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge began with research Zai conducted in 2001 in search of the Orang Laut, the ancient inhabitants of the Riau Islands, as part of an artist residency program offered by TheatreWorks in Singapore. Three years later, Zai encountered a theater group of “mak yong,” an ancient Malay folk drama, and has developed a collaborative relationship with their art form. Zai’s encounter with the Orang Laut and mak yong performers, and with the bearers of an old tradition that had been discriminated against, led to a series of installations that delved deeply into Malay history and was named after its central figure, the first king of ancient Malaya, Dapunta Hyang Jayanasa.
Gabriel OROZCO Ping-Pond Table 1998
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H76.7 × W424.5 × D424.5cm　© Gabriel OROZCO
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Gabriel OROZCO (Gallery 13)

Ping-Pond Table (1998), Piedras en la Reja (Stones in the fence) (1989),
Untitled (1992), Untitled (1993), Untitled (1993), Atomists: Double Stump (1996),
Burned Notes (1996), Barda de Latas (1998), “Penske Project” series (3 pieces) (1998),
Ex-Vitral (2000), Untitled (2000), Untitled (2000), Fear Not (2001),
“Katagami Prints” series (7 pieces) (2001), Lluvia en Tokio (2001),
Perro en silla (2001), Rolled Ink (2001), Star Caps (2001)

Born in Veracruz, Mexico in 1962. Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico and New York, USA.
Gabriel Orozco’s works span a range of different media including photography, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation, and usually involve the transformation of existing objects or things or interventions in familiar everyday scenes. By laying geometric patterns over news photographs, covering a skull with a checkered pattern, or cutting a car lengthways to create a single-seater vehicle, for example, he seeks to overturn the existing order and find in things meaning or connections that transcend space-time. Drawing on his study of mathematics and profound knowledge of architecture, he seeks to reconstruct from his own unique perspective the order linking all things in the universe.

Orozco’s practice of slightly altering existing things or situations or intervening in them by adding geometric elements is noticeable in Atomists: Double Stamp that was first unveiled in 1996 at the “Empty Club” exhibition in London. The title of this work, which was made by cutting out photographs from the sports section of a newspaper and adding oval patterns, derives from the philosophy of atomism developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. Ping-Pond Table is a typical example of Orozco’s game-themed works. The ping-pong table is shaped like a four-leafed clover, and the hollow in the center is filled with water, upon which water lilies float. The form of the game as we know it is transformed, and as a result the very act of viewing, including discovering the rules and experiencing the game, becomes closely connected to the creation of the piece. Orozco’s penetrating insight into reality and refined sculptural sensibility can also be seen in his drawings and photographic works. His art practice demonstrates symbolically his approach of treating the everyday as a place setting and seeking to uncover new relationships and frames of reference in thought, creative processes, forms of expression, and the act of viewing.
SASAKI Rui Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023 2023
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H253.5 × W310 × D332cm　©︎SASAKI Rui　photo: TAKAGI Yuu

SASAKI Rui (Long-Term Project Room)

Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023 (2023),
Reminiscences of the Garden –from Jacob Knapp– (2022-2023) (private collection),
Reminiscences of the Garden –from Jacob Knapp– (2022-2023) (collection of the artist)

Born in Kochi, Japan in 1984. Lives and works in Kanazawa, Ishikawa.
After majoring in glass at Musashino Art University, Sasaki moved to the United States to complete her master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since returning to Japan in 2012, she has been producing glass works with themes of nature and the environment that stir the senses and act as vessels of memory.

In this series, she presses plants found in her surroundings between sheets of glass and fires them, capturing ash and bubbles as vestiges of the process. Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023, created over more than a decade from 2012 to 2023, represents a culmination of a project that “freezes plants in time,” conveying a “subtle intimacy” that she senses in her environment. By encapsulating plants in glass, she foregrounds normally unseen aspects of the environment. Moisture from the atmosphere and components of the soil absorbed by the plants become visible within the glass. When light passes through the glass, the plant ash becomes translucent, revealing intricate leaf veins usually invisible to the naked eye. By causing plants to stand in for her own memories, Sasaki explores the intimacy that unconsciously pervades our daily lives while affirming her own existence. The uniquely delicate quality of glass is in extraordinary harmony with the theme of “archives of memory” frequently addressed in contemporary art. By entrusting her memories to non-human “plants,” this work presents a new relationship between plants and humans.
FUJI Hiroshi Happy Paradies 2015
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable　© FUJI Hiroshi　photo: KIOKU Keizo

FUJI Hiroshi (Project Room)

On view until September 8, Sunday
Happy Paradies (2015)

Born in Kagoshima, Japan in 1960. Lives and works in Akita.
Devoted himself to theatrical activities while studying at Kyoto City University of Arts. Later shifted his attention to creative activities based in his local community, establishing the performance unit Kyoto Johosha. After completing a master’s degree at Kyoto City University of Arts, Fuji lectured at Papua New Guinea’s National Art School as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer for JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency). Then, after joining an urban planning group, he established in 1992 the Fuji Hiroshi Design and Production Room. Since then he has been engaged in creative activities arising out of community resources, appropriate technology and cooperative relations in various locations.
Founded in Fukuoka in 2000, Kaekko is an exchange system for once-loved toys devised by Fuji and run by local residents in thousands of public and commercial facilities and other locations nationwide in an effort to encourage voluntary activities among children. This initiative addresses various issues facing society, including environmental education and disaster education, and is becoming increasingly popular as an activity that has the potential to “transform” the regions.

The materials for Happy Paradies consist mainly of the toys given away with meals by fast food chains that have accumulated, never having been exchanged, over the 15 years that Kaekko workshops have been held around the country since the system was established in 2000. The task of arranging the toys is carried out by people other than the artist on their own initiative, and this changing appearance is an important component of the installation and the reason why it can be thought of as a clear expression of the Kaekko program itself. The use of the neologism “Paradies” instead of “Paradise” in the title also seems to suggest this work symbolizes the remnants of today’s consumer society.
SUPERFLEX The Fermentation Act 2016
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable 　© SUPERFLEX　photo: KIOKU Keizo

SUPERFLEX (Design Gallery)

The Fermentation Act (2016)

Jakob FENGER: Born in Roskilde, Denmark in 1968. Lives and works in Copenhagen.
Bjørnstjerne CHRISTIANSEN: Born in Copenhagen in 1969. Lives and works there.
Rasmus NIELSEN: Born in Jelling, Denmark in 1969. Lives and works in Copenhagen.

An artists’ group formed in 1993. SUPERFLEX has undertaken projects in Copenhagen and other locations around the world. Utilizing their command of various media, including graphic design, video and architecture, they incorporate diverse perspectives in their projects, creating platforms for community awareness of issues and relationships. Describing their works as “tools,” they regard their exhibitions and projects as experimental spaces for stimulating the thinking of visitors.

In The Fermentation Act the exhaled breath of visitors and moisture in the air is collected using a dehumidifier and the resultant liquid, tea leaves and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) combined to make kombucha, a fermented beverage, which are then stored. Later, sheets of the copy paper used at the museum will be dyed using this liquid and dried at the museum. The liquid then will evaporate inside the building and the kombucha copy paper will be used on a daily basis, thereby finding new owners. This results in a circulatory process in which moisture is reduced and paper used. Performing this series of tasks are not the artists but local residents and visitors to the museum, who are encouraged to engage in various activities using this “tool.” The work embodies the studies undertaken by 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, into the kinds of relationships it can build with the local community and represented in project form through the use of a tool our attempts to foster a community.