21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

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].

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)
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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
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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.
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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)
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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