EXHIBITION
Exhibition2018
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Aperto 08
Nanakarage Ayano
2018.4.28(Sat.) - 2018.9.24(Mon.)
Taking as her theme the vastness of nature seen in mountains and forests, and the ephemerality of rainbows and mist, NANAKARAGE Ayano (1987-) meditates on such natural phenomena and, blending in her own interpretations and analogies, evokes its qualities in wood sculptures. Her “rainbows edge” series, featured in this exhibition, conjoins her own fabric-draped figure with the shapes of dried banana stems and other dried and withered plants. Her fusion of withered and gnarled plants with smooth drapery (a human figure) conveys a disquieting impression of old age melded with youth or some bizarre creature hidden under the fabric. At the same time, the works evoke the serenity of Buddhist or Shinto deity sculptures as well as the dread of having seen something forbidden. Vibrant living organisms age with time and grow dry and gnarled, and slowly change form. In such transformation, Nanakarage discovers a transcendent beauty. Her eye, as such, has the power to refresh our values as people of contemporary society conditioned to look away from deterioration and decay.
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Ay Tjoe Christine : Spirituality and Allegory
2018.4.28(Sat.) - 2018.8.19(Sun.)
Ay Tjoe Christine (b. 1973) was born in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, and is a renowned contemporary artist active in Indonesia today. She studies intaglio printing methods such as drypoint and then turned to working with textiles. Her artistic activities got their real start around 2000. Ay Tjoe Christine’s works express themes based on Christian mythologies and spiritual concepts, supported by her deep insight into human incompletion and Janus-faced nature. The color fragments that scatter and float across her pictures reveal, on one hand, the actions of her own wavering emotions, while the abstract images that set up fascinating harmonies with the canvas’ negative space reveal her sincere stance as she investigates the relationship between humans and all things. This is Ay Tjoe Crhistine’s first solo exhibition at a Japanese museum, presenting about 50 works that trace her two decades of multifaceted creativity, from early period drawings and drypoint, to a group of oil paintings that explore the potential for expression from the representational to the abstract, soft sculptures and large-scale installations, and large format paintings created for this exhibition.
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Runa ISLAM Scale (1/16 inch= 1 foot)
2018.4.28(Sat.) - 2018.6.24(Sun.)
From the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa collection, we are pleased to present Runa Islam’s Scale (1/16 inch = 1 foot) in its first showing. Runa Islam continually explores the concepts behind cinematic ideas, subjects, and forms, as well as film’s power to affect our perception and reception of ideas and images. In her early films and installations, she referenced experimental and avant-garde films, and used their film lexicon to develop her own methodology. Analyzing and grasping the images, styles, and methods of modern cinema, she disrupts the relationships between reality and fiction, between visual and architectural space and between “seeing” and “being seen,” and throws the viewer’s interpretation of the narrative into confusion. By means of this process, she constructs a cinematic experience from her own perspective on the world. This work, a two-screen video installation, features a multilevel car park in Gateshead in northeast England that appears in a scene from the film Get Carter (1971, UK). Filmed on a stage set that imagines an unbuilt restaurant originally planned for the building’s top floor, it depicts interactions between two young waiters and two elderly male customers. At a certain moment, the actors exchange roles, and images of the actual location and the stage set, as well as the building and building model, become shuffled to up-tempo music. While the work uses the lexicon of suspense films—the looks and gestures of the actors, the camerawork, the switching between scenes, the lighting, the music, and so on—the shifting between reality and illusion is depicted with a lyrical touch. Moreover, because the screens are positioned one in front of the other, the audience becomes lost in the entangled world depicted in the work without being able to fully grasp it.
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Collection Exhibition Adventure in “Seeing”
2018.1.27(Sat.) - 2018.6.24(Sun.)
Seeing is something most of us take for granted. Yet, to consciously see is surprisingly difficult, and as a result, we tend to miss much of what there is to see. An art museum is a place for “seeing,” “admiring,” and “thinking about” artworks. To the visitors to this exhibition, whether they normally enjoy viewing artworks or find it difficult, we would like to say, “First of all, begin by seeing well.” The exhibition “Adventures in ‘Seeing’” starts there. Open yourself to the artwork a little more than usual. Stand and view it 10 seconds longer than usual. After viewing it thoroughly, relax and view it a little more. Doing so, you will begin to see details you had not noticed, and your imagination will have time to come into play. Discoveries, surprises, and new feelings will come to you in an experience really no different from an adventure story. Please look actively at the artworks and unfold your very own adventure story. (YAMASHITA Juri, exhibition curator)
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Local Textile 1
TO & FRO Thinner, Lighter
2017.11.18(Sat.) - 2018.6.24(Sun.)
Part 1 the “Local Textile” series features TO & FRO, a travel gear brand of the Kaji Group based in Kanazawa and Kahoku. The brand’s name evokes an image of traveling lightly and comfortably “to and fro.” The Kaji Group, possessing advanced technology for weaving extremely thin thread, is producing fabric of unusually light nylon. The nylon fabric is currently used in products by outdoor brands around the world. TO & FRO is the Kaji Group’s own brand of travel organizers and other products created using this fabric. The travel organizers are displayed in this exhibition along with a wide range of fabric samples. Ishikawa prefecture, as a textile producer, has also developed a loom manufacturing industry. Although textile production tends to rely on division of labor, the Kaji Group possesses its own plant for customizing looms. Innovative production at the plant has enabled thread tensioning conducive of weaving with the thinnest, most easily breakable threads. High functionality is a powerful competitive edge over inexpensive mass-produced imported products and an important strategy for the future of Japan’s textile industry.
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