EXHIBITION
Exhibition
-
- Past
ARCHITECTURE FOR DOGS
2014.12.6(Sat.) - 2015.5.10(Sun.)
ARCHITECTURE FOR DOGS—an earnest architectural project for the happiness of dogs and people alike—looks at architecture from a canine scale and explores new potentials in architecture. Planning & direction: HARA Kenya Co-Foundes by Imprint Venture Lab Participating architects: Atelier Bow-Wow, ITO Toyo, MVRDV, KUMA Kengo, Konstantin GRCIC, SEJIMA Kazuyo, Torafu Architects, NAITO Hiroshi, BAN Shigeru, FUJIMOTO Sou, Reiser + Umemoto, Hara Design Institute, and HARA Kenya
… -
- Past
Architecture since 3.11
2014.11.1(Sat.) - 2015.5.10(Sun.)
As a special exhibition marking its 10th anniversary, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa will hold an exhibition, “Architecture since 3.11,” exploring new architectural trends in Japan since the 3.11 disaster. The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami forced architects to fundamentally rethink their understanding of architecture and society’s systems. What role will be demanded of architects hereafter, and what kind of future should they envision? Including such perspectives as energy and environment within its scope, the exhibition will look at architecture since 2011 through the endeavors of 25 architectural offices and ponder the architect’s role.
… -
- Past
Japan Architects 1945-2010
2014.11.1(Sat.) - 2015.3.15(Sun.)
As a special exhibition marking its 10th anniversary, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is collaborating with the Centre Pompidou (Paris) in holding exhibition of post-war Japanese architecture, “Japan Architects 1945-2010” taking the Centre Pompidou’s collection of works and materials as a core. Mr. Migayrou has divided the 65-year period from 1945 to 2010 into six sections and color-coded each section’s concept. His compelling vantage point on post-war Japanese architecture will be another exhibition highlight. Architects played a major role in Japan’s national project of reconstructing from the ruins of war. Adhering to the principles of modernism or, in some cases, pursing an essentially Japanese style, they designed and constructed public facilities and buildings of all kinds. As they did so, the architects gradually expanded their focus from architecture to urban design, and in the 1960s, the architectural movement “Metabolism” was born, impelled by new economic and technological development. This movement reached its apogee at the 1970 Osaka Exposition and thereafter diversified, further evolved, and formed a new vision. A younger generation of architects inherited its aims, but already a minimalist style of architecture—what might be called “architecture of elimination”—was sweeping the nation. Then, in the late 1990s, after the collapse of Japan’s bubble economy and the Kobe Earthquake, works appeared that re-examined architecture from the perspectives of “narrative” and “program,” and many Japanese architects rose to international acclaim. This exhibition offers a precious opportunity to follow the tracks of the Japanese architects who, swinging between Western modernism and Japanese identity, created their own style and vision and garnered international attention. The great number of works and materials—over 240 original drawings and models by some 80 architects who spear-headed the development of post-war Japanese architecture—are invaluable tools for understanding these architects’ conceptual and design processes. All together, they form an architecture exhibition of a scale never before seen in Japan. It is an exhibition of importance—not only for the light it casts on architectural history but also for the deep insight it offers into Japan’s rapidly changing post-war society.
… -
- Past
SUZUKI Yasuhiro’s Mitate Laboratory
2014.9.13(Sat.) - 2014.11.24(Mon.)
"This reminds me something else," we often wonder to ourselves. The technique of representing one object with another is called mitate. Yasuhiro Suzuki likens a boat’s wake to a zipper or the ball of a kendama cup-and-ball to an apple and, in this way, rediscovers familiar objects and phenomena from his own perspective. The artworks he creates using this technique help open up our perceptions of the world. This autumn, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is holding a "project exhibit" of mitate theme. The exhibit will occasion a fresh look at the art museum and around Kanazawa.
… -
- Past
APERTO 1
KIM Mitsuo White light White heat
2014.9.13(Sat.) - 2014.11.24(Mon.)
“Aperto,” a new series, takes a solo exhibition format to highlight up-and-coming young artists and examine new trends in the making. “KIM Mitsuo: White light White heat” is the inaugural exhibition in this series. Kim Mitsuo employs silk-screen techniques to explore the relationship between serial images and the image they produce as a total effect. Spreading a thin layer of paraffin wax on a board, he transfers an ink image to the wax using silk screen. He then exposes the surface to heat and melts the wax, halting the process to let it harden just before the image disappears entirely. The ink portions that melt along with the wax return to an unfigured state and remain as spaces of emptiness. Although a two-dimensional work, its surface is disturbed by projections of the wax and shows the traces of Kim’s own physical actions. The indistinct, broken lines of a fence or chair form an ambiguous boundary, causing us to sense another world of light beyond. While giving play to the qualities of his materials and techniques, Kim implies that opposing phenomena exist in the same world and gives visual embodiment to a situation in which the essential spirit of what we expect to see is missing. Yumiko Tatematsu (Curator, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
… -
- Past
Collection Exhibition II EXPOSURE | FIXING
2014.9.13(Sat.) - 2014.10.13(Mon.)
The Museum, to mark its 10th anniversary and give visitors opportunity to rediscover its contemporary appeal, will focus on photographic works among the works of wide-ranging media in the collection.
… -
- Past
Awazu Kiyoshi : Makurihirogeru(EXPOSE)1
Art Running Wild: AWAZU Kiyoshi and Performance
2014.9.13(Sat.) - 2014.10.13(Mon.)
The laws of causality in landscapes and objects, chance encounters. Chance operation. That is what I think people are seeing. “Art Running Wild,” Awazu Kiyoshi (from Zokei Shiko Noto, p.112) After World War II, in a Tokyo that had turned into a wasteland, Awazu Kiyoshi (1929-2009) taught himself painting, using films and art magazines as his textbooks, by sketching passengers on the Yamanote Line trains and people in the street. In 1955, after winning the Japan Advertising Artists Club Award for his poster Umi wo Kaese (Give Our Sea Back), he adopted and expanded the reproduction and mass production of images through design and printing technology as the object of his expression, saying, "In all expressive fields, I resolve to remove not only the boundaries among forms of expression; I will remove class, category, disparity and the hierarchies that have appeared in art," and crossing a variety of genres, continued to challenge himself to experimental forms of expression. Awazu’s work appeared in posters, publications and architecture, and spread throughout the city. He participated in "Metabolism" in 1960, and in Expoland and the Japanese pavilion concept plan for Expo ’70 in Osaka. The font design for Japan’s motorway signage is also attributable to Awazu. Some 2,786 works by Awazu Kiyoshi have been gifted to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa since 2006 from the Awazu Design Room. The exhibition "Graphism in the Wilderness" held at the museum in 2007 presented 1,750 works, but there are a large number of previously unshown works, materials and notes, among other things that provide clues about his creative process and experimental activities, which even now are being researched and studied. Starting this year, a series titled "Makurihirogeru(EXPOSE)" will present the world of Awazu Kiyoshi, from a multi-dimensional perspective, including work never shown before. The first exhibition will focus on , a series produced between 1977 and 1979 by the artist HAMADA Goji, in which Awazu participated and created three original performances. Hamada later said, "I think the fact that art has transcended or disconnected from social systems and global significance is the single thing art can boast about. When this is denied, it makes me want to fight. For me, it is because the whole thing is synonymous with performance." * This exhibition will be staged from this perspective and put into practice the pioneering spirit of Awazu Kiyoshi who dismantled the existing hierarchy, together with artists who are active in various fields today. KITADE Chieko, Exhibition Curator 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa * "Interview with Hamada Goji, Guzen wo torikomi, katachi no nai mono no chikara wo shinjite" (Capturing chance and believing in the power of formless things); Kitagawa Fram, Aato no chikaku hendo (The diastrophism of art), Bijutsu Shuppansha, 2013, p. 116.
… -
- Past
HASHIMOTO Masaya “Awai naru mono”
2014.5.24(Sat.) - 2014.8.31(Sun.)
In his work, HASHIMOTO Masaya has critically and exhaustively examined the distinctive “concern for materials and techniques” that permeates all Japanese art. This exhibition will present two important series of works by Hashimoto.
… -
- Past
Leandro ERLICH −The Ordinary?
2014.5.3(Sat.) - 2014.8.31(Sun.)
Swimming Pool, a familiar work at this museum, and Leandro Erlich’s first solo exhibition in Japan. Leandro Erlich (born in Buenos Aires in 1973; resides in Montevideo, Uruguay) is, to the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, a very special artist. His The Swimming Pool, a work familiar to many as “Leandro’s Pool,” has played a particularly large role at this museum, which was designed by SANAA / Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa. Amid the many creative modes that seemed almost to well up from the early 1990s on, his style, which creates changes in our perception of reality through objects and actions everyone can share, can be identified as one of the sustained characteristics of contemporary art. The Swimming Pool spurs on the viewer’s awareness of the problematic by taking something ordinary, a pool, and turning it into the extraordinary in combination with new and unknown elements. By intervening boldly in our everyday lives, brilliantly reflecting our states in response to the existence of those things, and adding both approachability and casualness, he encourages the habit of making a full body response when people face his works and receive the full, uninhibited force of his creativity. His are, without a doubt, works of art that have contributed greatly to people’s growing love for contemporary art. This exhibition, his first solo exhibition in Japan, will exhibit seventeen of his latest works, in addition to The Swimming Pool. We are delighted to be able to hold it in 2014, the tenth anniversary of the opening of this museum. We hope you will take this opportunity to enjoy the creative world of Leandro Erlich, whose work always proposes a place of rapport, open and free. (Hiromi Kurosawa, Curator 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
… -
- Past
Taste of Curiosity ― Museum of Curiosity food creation + The University Museum, The University of Tokyo
2014.4.26(Sat.) - 2015.3.31(Tue.)
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa will mark its 10th anniversary on October 9 this year. On this occasion, we are holding "Taste of Curiosity – Museum of Curiosity"—a program to create a "banquet" site for celebrating our 10 years with everyone. The program is being led by food creation / SUWA Ayako—a project to propose new values for the enjoyment of food—and The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, which will create a "The Chambers of Curiosities." The program will be an unprecedented art museum event, taking "taste" as a theme in harkening back to the original impulse behind the museum concept—curiosity. Already, more than 50 "Foodstuffs of Curiosity" have been gathered, and over 400 people will take part in "Experiences of Taste." The program will develop in stages toward an exciting climax as a "banquet."
… -
- Past
NAKAMURA Yoshifumi "Come on-a my Hut!"
2014.4.26(Sat.) - 2014.8.31(Sun.)
Nakamura Yoshifumi has consistently made houses that are in tune with the lifestyles of his clients and snug like a set of everyday clothes. This exhibition uses the idea of the hut, a form that has captivated Nakamura since he was a child and which serves as the model for his residential buildings, as a medium for re-addressing the question, "What is a dwelling?" In the Long-term Project Space we will introduce seven huts that have captivated Nakamura over many years along with projects ranging from huts to small residential buildings designed by Nakamura himself. In addition, in the courtyard we will display a full-scale version of a "single-person" hut designed by Nakamura. This hut incorporates many of the features Nakamura has been experimenting with in his own hut in a quest for energy self-sufficiency in a dwelling reduced in size to the bare minimum. It is at once a comfortable living space with the warmth that all individually made things have and a vision of a future society and way of living in response to the energy and environmental problems that confront us, particularly in the wake of 3/11.
… -
- Past
Collection Exhibition I TRANSPARENCY | REFLECTION
2014.4.12(Sat.) - 2014.9.21(Sun.)
"Collection Exhibition I TRANSPARENCY | REFLECTION" looks at the properties of "transparency and reflection" in the context of their use in artworks, such as sculptural works that employ materials transparent to light or light reflecting, a self-portrait in the form of the artist's reflection, or photographic images acquired through a lens. Transparent materials and highly polished surfaces have fascinated people since ancient times. As concepts, "transparency and reflection" repeatedly come up in art, as well, such as when artworks are likened to windows or mirrors. The physical effects produced by highly transparent materials and mirror techniques can greatly surprise us or be a source of fun and enjoyment, and what we see when peering through these artworks or gazing into their reflections can change our visual channel and induce new thinking. Later, after viewing this exhibition, when you walk through our museum once again, what kind of images do you see reflected in the museum’s circular glass wall or large transparent doors? What scenery opens to you from beyond them? (NAKATA Koichi, Curator, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
… -
- Past
Philosophical Fashion 3: mintdesigns "happy people"
2013.12.7(Sat.) - 2014.5.18(Sun.)
"Philosophical Fashion"—a series inquiring into the meaning of clothing today, when trends change with dizzying speed, driven by the phenomenal rise of "fast fashion." Featured in this series are creators who consistently propose new fashions on the basis of an enduring concept. Our third exhibit in this series looks at "mintdesigns." Fashion brand mintdesigns is known for clothing designs that give play to unique textiles developed by the brand’s creators, Hokuto Katsui and Nao Yagi. Besides fashion, mintdesigns actively pursues collaborations in other fields, such as dinner ware, furniture, and Japanese confections, so its design territory is continually expanding. Not stopping at clothing, Katsui and Yagi seek to impart richness to our everyday lives through product design. Their activities, as such, explore the possibilities of "fashion" far beyond what is "fashionable." This exhibit will take "happy people" as its theme in an experimental endeavor to deploy mintdesign clothing actively in everyday life. People living in Tokyo and Kanazawa will encounter mintdesigns in their own everyday spaces, and the moment of their encounter will be displayed. HIRABAYASHI Megumi, Curator
… -
- Past
Koji Kakinuma – Exploring Calligraphy
2013.11.23(Sat.) - 2014.3.2(Sun.)
Calligrapher Koji Kakinuma—born in 1970, lives and works in Tokyo. At five years old he took up the brush, first under father, Suiryu Kakinuma, and later Yukei Teshima and Ichijo Uematsu. Asking "Is Shodo art? Am I an artist?" Kakinuma has continually pushed the boundaries of Shodo, the Japanese art of calligraphy. Kakinuma brings to Shodo a contemporary vision grounded in tradition. He probes the principle of calligraphy in an endeavor to see calligraphy as a contemporary art form. "Inhale, exhale—use the brush freely!" is the figure of calligraphy he aspires to. Kakinuma’s expressive style takes many forms. "Rinsho" (brushing after a model) is a platform for dialogue with master calligraphers and people of the ancient past. "Encounters"—an offshoot of Rinsho—are his interpretations of others’ words in the Kakinuma style. His "super-large-scale works" are pictorial investigations using charcoal ink. Then, there is "performance," where he shares the creative process with an audience, "trancework"—countless repetitions of simple, powerful phrases, and "installations" that give temporal and spatial development to calligraphy on grand scale. The calligraphy of Koji Kakinuma is thus an "art of today" that draws from calligraphy, contemporary art, and sub-culture. It is calligraphy of hope that looks to tomorrow. It is calligraphy of possibility, free and open to the future. This exhibition will present the world of Koji Kakinuma through some 700 of his foremost works. AKIMOTO Yuji, Exhibition Curator Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
… -
- Past
Borderline Collection Exhibition II
2013.9.28(Sat.) - 2014.3.16(Sun.)
We differentiate between the internal and external in many different situations. Our interior is formed on the basis of common rules such as language, physical characteristics and memory, and friction and discord frequently arise between inside and out. Yet we find new rules for the internal and external, negotiating on the boundaries, which are continually being updated. Thus we could describe a border as a territory harboring the potential to expand the interior. This year's Collection Exhibition is an attempt from this standpoint to change our view of borderlines from one of division, to one of connection and expansion. "Borderline Collection Exhibition I" took as its basis that which is most familiar to us – the body – and pondered the relationship between inside and out. "Borderline Collection Exhibition II" expands this to include social borders, in a showcase of works from the Museum’s collection. Having come to possess through the evolutionary process a massive cerebrum, homo sapiens also acquired the inner realm that is consciousness. Various borderlines exist in our society: between the self and others, national borders, and gender, to name just a few, but in most cases no actual line has been drawn. Rather a line has been drawn by people in their consciousness, and subsequently become institutionalized. Through the work of eight artists, at times confronting the borderlines created by human consciousness, at times traversing them, this exhibition explores the potential for people to expand the inner realm that is the self through contact with the outside, via borders. YONEDA Seiko, Curator, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
… -
- Past
Shimabuku: Noto
2013.4.27(Sat.) - 2014.3.2(Sun.)
Shimabuku travels the world, creating artworks that examine how people live and communicate. For this long-term project lasting one year, Shimabuku is traveling to Noto to satisfy his curiosity about its unusual customs and products. Then, based on what he discovers there from his unique artistic perspective, he is creating new artworks. The project is the 7th undertaking of the “Kanazawa Youth Dream Challenge Art Programme,” which offers young people from Kanazawa and other regions opportunities to work together with artists. As such, it has already (since April) seen some 28 “volunteer members” visit Noto with Shimabuku and return to recreate their discoveries there, in a museum gallery. From September 28, the artist is exhibiting the new works he has created with the members. Workshops and other events are also being held with Noto and this museum as a stage. Visitors to the exhibition will be freshly moved by Shimabuku’s unique perspective on Noto, so that they look anew at things all around them.
…