EXHIBITION
Exhibition2008
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- Past
MAKOTO SAITO: SCENE [0]
2008.8.2(Sat.) - 2008.11.3(Mon.)
The first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan devoted to Makoto Saito, a creator internationally renowned in the graphic design field. Through innovative expression in the 1980s and '90s, Saito shattered the norms of graphic design, and has since reshaped the design field. Now, in a much-anticipated exhibition of new works he will launch into the twenty-first century, Saito presents some 50 of the paintings he has been incubating for years. Saito's wide-ranging creative activities have heretofore emerged from a perpetual themeーhis investigation into the act of "seeing." In the mid- '90s, Saito began to explore the painting genre in earnest, alongside his activities in the design field. His paintings, this time, reflect as ever the penetrating eye he continually casts on contemporary life. Among their subjects are movies, a medium of special meaning to him that he has felt close to since childhood. Capturing a single, instantaneous shot from a movie, he boldly deconstructs it employing the contemporary filter of digital technology. The exhibition will provide a glimpse into Saito's present creative world and his endeavor to expand the act of "seeing" to an act of "depicting." The human figures we encounter in these paintings are veiled in a frosty cold atmosphere from which we sense no warmth. From a temperatureless zero pointーSCENE [0]ーa disquieting world slowly emerges. It is as if the artist were consciously defying today's trend of conveniently seeking healing in warmth and naturalness. Saito's pictorial space, constructed using his own unique motifs and textures, captures the feel of our times and portrays us, the people of contemporary society, with merciless objectivity. *exclusive site http://www.kanazawa21.jp/exhibit/saitou/index_en.html
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Katsuhiko HIBINO Art Project
‘HOME→AND←AWAY’ SYSTEM meets NODA [But-a-I]
2008.5.31(Sat.) - 2008.10.19(Sun.)
The second phase of “HOME→AND←AWAY” SYSTEM, launched in 2007, is entitled “Katsuhiko HIBINO Art Project ‘HOME→AND←AWAY’ SYSTEM meets NODA [But-a-I].” In this phase, Katsuhiko Hibino and Hideki Noda will travel back and forth between each other’s “HOME→AND←AWAY” (art and theater) in a grand experiment in expressive action. By introducing the element of theater into art through workshops and stage design, Katsuhiko Hibino will seek to expand the possibilities for expression in the art museum context. Through interaction with the “art museum gallery”—what is for him an “away” setting—Hideki Noda will reach for new expressive potential. Constructed from over 2,000 Owase hinoki (Japanese cypress) trees, the [But-a-I] stage displayed in the gallery functions as a device for converting visitors alternately to actors and viewers. The [But-a-I] workshop launched in April in the Project Room, moreover, will expand its activities to the [But-a-I] stage in the gallery and become a public workshop of open character. *exclusive site http://www.kanazawa21.jp/exhibit/hibino2008/
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Ron Mueck
2008.4.26(Sat.) - 2008.8.31(Sun.)
This is a solo exhibition of Ron Mueck (1958 - ), whose works attract a great deal of attention, to be held for the first time in Japan. Mueck who has a career of making models for movies and TV programs makes full use of materials such as silicon and fiberglass to express a human body in precise sculpture by means of a classic casting technique. To complete his work, Mueck devotes himself completely to communicate with materials and the motif in the long thorough process of production. In the world of his work, realism showing in detail even hair and blood vessels under the skin is interwoven with the unreality of sizes that are gigantic or minimum. You might say that the world of his works is criticizing the nature of human existence in the contemporary society. The world of MueckÅfs works, which cross the body and the spirit, and the ordinary and the unordinary, confronts us vividly with the essential issue in art, that is, the relation between "creation" and "the nature of human existence." *exclusive site http://www.kanazawa21.jp/exhibit/mueck/index_en.html
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