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EXHIBITION

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller

2017.11.25 (Sat.) -
2018.3.11 (Sun.)

Information

Period :
2017.11.25 (Sat.) - 2018.3.11 (Sun.)
10:00 - 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays)
Venue :
Galleries / 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Galleries 7-14
Closed:
Mondays (open on Jun 8, Feb 12), and Dec 29 (Fri.) - Jan 1 (Mon.), Jan 9 (Tue.), Feb 13 (Tue.)
Admission:
Adult: ¥1,000 (¥800)
University: ¥800 (¥600)
Elem/ JH/ HS: ¥400 (¥300)
65 and over: ¥800
*( ) indicate advance ticket and group rates (20 or more).
Advance Tickets:
Ticket PIA (Tel 0570-02-9999) P code: 768-702
LAWSON-Ticket & HMV (Tel 0570-000-777) L code: 53934
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

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s works display a command of sophisticated sound and video technology, and striking sculptural creations. The viewer undergoes a complex perceptual experience of “hearing and seeing” and enters their imaginative world in a spell of enchantment. When experiencing a Cardiff and Bures Miller work, unseen things become visible, soundless things are heard, and we suddenly step beyond reality into their stories with our senses and values in disarray.
Cardiff and Bures Miller’s exhibition at this time features new works and eight installations being shown in Japan for the first time. Installed in the spatially autonomous galleries of this museum, the pieces will transport the audience to imaginary interconnected worlds. A precious opportunity to experience the work of a groundbreaking international artist team.

Related Events

Artist talk: Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Date/time: Sunday November 26, 2017 14:00~16:00
Venue: Theater 21, BIF
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Admission: Free
Capacity: 130 people
Apply: Starting 10:00 November 14 (Tue) on our website. First 130 applications.
Language: English-Japanese(consective interpretation)

Profile

Portrait Cardiff & Miller | 2012
Photographed in Grindrod, BC, Canada
Photo: Zev Tiefenbach
Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

Janet Cardiff (left)
Born in 1957, Brussels, Ontario, Canada

George Bures Miller (right)
Born in 1960, Vegreville, Alberta, Canada

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller got start their collaborative work around 1995. Currently live and based in Grindrod, British Columbia (Canada). Representing Canada at the 49th Venice Biennale the artists won the Special Award and Benesse Prize. They have also participated in Documenta 13 (2012) and numerous international art festivals. In Japan, they have participated in Yokohama Triennale (2005), 1st Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions (2009), Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial (2009), Setouchi International Art Festival (2010), and Aichi Triennale (2013). They have also held a solo exhibition at Maison Hermes (2009). Permanent works in Japan include "Storm House" (2010), "Dreaming Naoshima" (2016) [Benesse Art Site Naoshima].

Principal Featured Works

Conversation with Antonello 2015
Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

Conversation with Antonello

Conversation with Antonello is Cardiff and Bures Miller's response to Antonello da Messina's Saint Jerome in his Study (1475) from the collection of the National Gallery (London) produced for Soundscapes, a 2015 exhibition at the Gallery. They created an installation work that attempts to understand the creative process and the architectural space of Messina's painting by reconstructing it in a 3-dimensional architectural model. Placing their chin on the wooden bar and looking through the front archway of the structure the audience can view the scene from the same position as where the painter may have stood. (text: Janet Cardiff)
Video clip

Opera for a Small Room 2005
Photo: Markus Tretter (Kunsthaus Bregenz)
Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

Opera for a Small Room

A man’s voice which comes out of a megaphone speaker pretends that he is a character on an imaginary stage. He tells a tragic tale while he plays his collection of opera records. You realize that the tale is about his own fight with a woman who has left him and that he has created an opera for himself about his pain. In his mumblings he tells you that she and her lover have died after an accident involving their car and a train and at one point you hear him howling in agony. His final spoken line is “The music doesn’t really change anything. But it helps him in a way he doesn’t understand. It’s an opera after all. Everyone dies in the end.”
At the end he is the star of his own rock opera as he deals with his pain, guilt, and regret. (text: Janet Cardiff)
Opera for a Small Room- Script
Video clip

The Marionette Maker 2014
Courtesy of the artists, Luhring Augustine, New York and Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo

The Marionette Maker

In the gallery stands a vintage camping trailer. Peering inside, we see a world of tiny marionettes and animals who play and dance to music. A woman sleeps and dreams inside the trailer, and as a work inside a work, a writer is seen busily writing her dream for re-creation. We who watch feel as if we, too, are gazing on the world from within her dream.
Video clip

The Carnie 2010
Photo: Larry Lamay

The Carnie

An antique carousel reminiscent of the kind seen at traveling carnivals in the 1940s. Under bright lights spin a wooden horse, giraffe, deer, and other animals. Strange sounds emit from speakers attached to the animals’ mouths, and old manikins hung from above dance in mid-air like angels. The bizarre carnival-like spectacle threatens to pull us into a dream or world of madness. (text: Janet Cardiff)
Video clip

Playhouse

The voice of Cardiff leads you into the artwork saying: ‘Hello, sorry I’m late. Let’s go in, through the middle of the curtains and then through the next set… and then sit down.’
After this Cardiff comments on the songs and you realize that there is a detective story involving you that is going on and something has gone wrong with the plan as Cardiff leaves you to sort it out.
Bures Miller’s voice at the end says: ‘When this theatre is old and decrepit, roof leaking, rats scrounging in the rubble, you’ll come back and sit in this box and remember her performance and everything that went wrong that night.’ (text: Janet Cardiff)

Publication

Something Strange This Way - Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

The catalogue for their solo exhibition at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum (Aarhus, Denmark 2014-15) will be revised in Japanese with the addition of works exhibited at this museum. Their first monograph published in Japan. The publication will feature comments by the artists and an essay by curator Maria Kappel Blegvad along with numerous photos of artworks and production scenes. Important keywords related to their activities and artworks will also be provided in dictionary format.

Publication: SEIGENSHA Art Publishing, Inc.
Scheduled release: November 25, 2017
Price: ¥2,500 (tax excluded)
Specifications: 23x16.5cm / 202 pages

List of works

[Gallery 7]
Conversation with Antonello 2015
Materials: mixed media installation with scale model, diorama, audio and lighting
Duration: 14 minute loop
Vocalist: Bernhard Landauer
Composition: Vergine Bella, Guillaume DuFay (1397-1474)
Tonmeister: Titus Manderlechner
Additional background painting: David Janzen
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the artists

[Gallery 8]
The Killing Machine 2007
Materials: mixed media, sound, pneumatics and robotics
Duration: 5 minutes
Music: “Heartstrings” by Frieda Abtan
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 9]
Playhouse 1997
Materials: mixed media with video projection and binaural audio
Duration: 5 minute loop
Music Composition: Giacomo Puccini
Aria: O mio bambino caro
Singer: Gaye-Lynn Kern
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 10]
The Cabinet of Curiousness 2017
Materials: unique oak card catalogue with speakers and audio
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 11]
Opera for a Small Room 2005
Materials: mixed media with sound, record players, records and synchronized lighting
Duration: 20 minute loop
Roadkill Crow song composition and voice: George Bures Miller
Guitar, drums and mixing: Titus Maderlechner
Bass guitar, organ and orchestration: Tilman Ritter
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 12]
Imbalance.6 (Jump) 1998
Materials: pneumatics, TV monitor and electronic control system
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 13]
The Marionette Maker 2014
Materials: mixed media installation including caravan, marionettes, robotics, audio and lighting
Duration: 14 minute loop
Percussion: Connor Johnson
Guitar and Piano: Titus Maderlechner, George Bures Miller
Op. 6: VI "None But the Lonely Heart" composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with words by Goethe.
Performed by Galina Vishnevskaya & Mstislav Rostropovich
Originally produced for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 2014
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

[Gallery 14]
The Carnie 2010
Materials: moving carousel with synchronized audio and light
Duration: 3 minutes 25 seconds
Composer: Freida Abtan "The Works and Days of Hands"
Courtesy of the artists, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo and Luhring Augustine, New York

Movies

  • Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller video clip

Organizers

Organized by:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)
Patronized by:
Embassy of Canada in Japan