Collection Exhibition 1: Material Fever｜21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Collection Exhibition 1: Material Fever

2025.5.24(Sat.) - 2025.9.15(Mon./holiday)

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Information

Period:

2025.5.24(Sat.) - 2025.9.15(Mon./holiday)

Venue:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Gallery 1-6

Admission:

Adults: ¥450 (¥360)
Students: ¥310 (¥240)
18 and under: Free
65 and over: ¥360
*Fees in parentheses are for groups of 20 people or more and web tickets

Book tickets here

Closed:

Mondays (open on July 21, August 11, September 15), July 22, August 12

For More Information:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Phone: +81-76-220-2800
E-Mail: info@kanazawa21.jp

This exhibition showcases works from the museum collection that take their starting point from an interest in the material world. When glass goes beyond the limits of temperature and melts into clay, and analog signals become runaway beasts in closed circuits, materials are transformed from silent supporting characters into protagonists of artistic expression. Artists relinquish their obsession over things being “controllable,” provocatively guiding these materials towards a central role or focus.
The theme of “Material Fever” indicates not only the artist’s passion for the material in question, but also the heat that the material itself contains. The visitor to this exhibition will experience not what the artist has created, but rather the process by which the material achieves a seance-like state through the artist. Here, matter is not an object that has been tamed by enlightened reason, but rather a form of subjectivity with the power to resist and negotiate, constructing a wild, symbiotic world together with humans.
Welcome to the “Material Fever” exhibition. Under the guidance of the artists, let us recreate a kind of physical dialogue with the world, and reexamine the relationship between humans and the material world by experiencing these works with all of our senses.

Related Programs

Gallery tour by curator

Date and Time: 13:30-14:15, June 14, June 28, July 19, August 9, August 30, September 15, 2025 (tentative)
Meeting place: behind the ticket counter
*We will announce the details on our website and social media as soon as they are fixed.

Exhibiting artists (in alphabetical order)

CHIMURA Yohei (invited Artist)
Angelo FILOMENO
HATTA Yutaka
ITABASHI Hiromi
KAWAI Masayuki
Vik MUNIZ
NARAHARA Hiroko
Carsten NICOLAI
TOYOUMI Kenta
TSUMORI Hidenori
YAMAZAKI Tsuruko

Introduction to the exhibiting artists and the works

HATTA Yutaka, Flow 02-35 / 02-36, 2002
H193×W262cm
Mulberry (tree bark)
© HATTA Yutaka
photo: SAIKI Taku

HATTA Yutaka

Flow 02-35 / 02-36, 2002

Born in Fukui Prefecture, Japan in 1930; lives and works there.
Hatta Yutaka graduated in 1951 from Kanazawa College of Art, where he majored in Western-style painting. He was regarded as a standard bearer for the local avant-garde art movement on account of activities from the 1960s onwards. In the 1980s, after experiencing weakening eyesight and learning that he would eventually become blind, Hatta turned his focus to community-related activities, launching the Tannan Art Festival.
After losing his sight in the late 1980s, the crux of Hatta’s creative work shifted from visual to auditory and haptic perception. He began with the “Nagare Yori” (from the flow) series, in which he poured acrylic paint onto canvas and listened to the dripping while he worked, and in the 1990s he began to use natural materials such as kozo (mulberry), used in Echizen Washi paper that is made locally. The series of processes by which Hatta creates a new sense of order while conversing with the material, first unravelling the fibers and then softening them using nothing but the acute sense of touch in his own fingers, are extremely physical acts.
ITABASHI Hiromi, Hollow Space, 2003
H40×W93.5×D52.5cm
Chamotte
© ITABASHI Hiromi
photo: SAIKI Taku

ITABASHI Hiromi

Hollow Space, 2003

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1948; lives and works there.
Starting in the first half of the 1970s, Itabashi Hiromi aspired to become a ceramic artist, and completed his studies at the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center. Since the late 1970s, he has been making unglazed white porcelain using a casting method in which balloons are molded in plaster. Later he made experimental works of black glazed pottery and works combining chamotte (powder made from once-fired pottery) and white porcelain. Gradually he shifted his focus towards chamotte, and in recent years he has been making works made only of chamotte. He utilizes the attributes of the material to express particular textures and forms.
CHIMURA Yohei,
A Deformed Ellipsoid,
from the series “The Experiment on the Origin”, 2014
Collection of the artist
H33×W40×D40cm
Glass, tin
© CHIMURA Yohei
photo: ICHIKAWA Shinichi
Courtesy of the artist

CHIMURA Yohei (invited Artist)

A Deformed Ellipsoid, from the series “The Experiment on the Origin”, 2014

Born in 1984 in Chiba Prefecture, Japan; lives and works there.
Having studied traditional metal casting and glass modeling techniques, Chimura creates works that focus on the things that trigger transformations in various materials, or the moments in which these metamorphoses occur. He incorporates the process of transformation itself into his works by leveraging the distinctive characteristics of particular materials, such as how metals that are fired melt and flow, or how glass and plastic become distorted and harden during the exchange of heat. Through the cycles associated with how forms come into existence and become lost before being recreated once more, Chimura explores the boundaries between destruction and creation, and nature and artifice. Through both the beauty and sense of precarity that lies latent within change, the artist reconsiders the relationship between materials, the environment, and humans.
TSUMORI Hidenori, Oscillation '16-9, 2016
H22×W48×D42cm
Glass, clay
©TSUMORI Hidenori
photo: KIOKU Keizo

TSUMORI Hidenori

Oscillation '16-9, 2016; Remnants Of, 2025

Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1986; lives and works there.
Tsumori graduated in 2012 from the Glass Program in the Department of Ceramic, Glass, and Metal Works at Tama Art University. He honed his skills at the Toyama Institute of Glass Art and the Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo. He has since won several awards, including the Silver Award at the 2018 Toyama International Glass Exhibition and the Grand Prize at the 2019 International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa.
Tsumori moved from Tokyo to the Hokuriku region in order to pursue his interest in the transparency and inorganic textures of glass. In most kilns, glass is fired at temperatures between 500 and 850℃, while clay requires higher temperatures of 800 to 1250℃. As expansion rates differ depending on the temperature, firing these materials together causes cracking, and has traditionally been scrupulously avoided. Tsumori addressed this taboo with an endless series of test pieces, experimenting to find the correct mixes and methods for the fusion of glass and clay and pioneering a new approach to material blending. He has been crafting works with a hybrid glass-clay material since 2015. Tsumori exhibits pieces that have cooled into biomorphic shapes reminiscent of living organisms due to their varying melting points, in the pursuit of sculptural forms that capture dynamic processes of transformation in a single instant. In 2017, Oscillation '16-9 was awarded the Ronald Labaco Special Recognition Award at the 3rd Triennale of Kogei in Kanazawa – 2017 Kogei World Competition in Kanazawa.
Angelo FILOMENO, Paradise Islands, 2002
H173×W173cm
Embroidery on silk shantung stretched over canvas
© Angelo FILOMENO
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Angelo FILOMENO

Paradise Islands, 2002

Born in Ostuni, Italy in 1963; lives and works in New York City, the United States.
Filomeno’s father was a metalwork specialist while his mother was a dressmaker. At the age of seven, he was apprenticed to a tailor, and learned the basics of sewing. Upon graduating from art college, he started working in the fashion industry. After moving to New York, he became engaged in the making of theatrical costumes. In early 2000, he started creating embroidery works. Using precious materials such as threads of silk, gold and silver as well as crystals, he embroiders representational images of animals, plants, skulls, excrement and blood, which express his particular worldview that wavers between life and death, brilliance and decadence. He participated in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2007.
TOYOUMI Kenta, HOPE-fossil HIV-, 2014
H91×W91×D1.2cm
Lacquer, egg shell, aluminum composite material
© TOYOUMI Kenta
photo: KIOKU Keizo

TOYOUMI Kenta

HOPE-fossil HIV-, 2014

Born in Osaka Prefecture, Japan in 1988; lives and works in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan.
Completed the Doctor’s Course in Craft at Kanazawa College of Art, and served as an Urushi Work Specialist at Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo from April 2020 to March 2025.
This work was Toyoumi’s master's degree graduation work. It features a smooth black lacquer finish known as roiro on an aluminum composite panel, which was further polished with charcoal to achieve a mirror-like finish. On this surface, tiny pieces of quail eggshell are meticulously arranged like a pointillist mosaic. Toyoumi was inspired to create this work by a photograph of HIV provided by the Public Health and Environment Center, Hiroshima Prefectural Technology Research Institute. The image represents the emergence of HIV from a human lymphocyte, with the pixel-like placement of eggshells generating a sense of granular depth and causing the lacquer to resemble the film of a microphotograph.
Vik MUNIZ

Picture of Chocolate, Diver (After Siskind), 1997

Born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1961; lives and works in New York City, the United States and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Vik Muniz began to take photographs to document objects that he had made, which led him to start to release series of photographic works. He recreates famous news photographs or masterpieces from art history using materials such as sugar, ketchup or chocolate, and then photographs the results. As seen in the mode of expression where viewers are able to experience multiple perspectives at the same time — in other words, the recognition of the depicted image and the perception as they approach the work that the image is in fact an aggregate made up of unexpected substances, Muniz expresses in an inimitable style the relationship between perception and one’s awareness of reality.
Carsten NICOLAI, milch (25hz), 2000
H89×W70.5cm
Cibachrome print mounted on aluminum board
© Carsten NICOLAI
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Carsten NICOLAI

milch, 2000; telefunken, 2000

Born in Karl-Marx-Stadt, former East Germany (now Chemnitz, Germany) in 1965; lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
In addition to being active as a visual artist, Carsten Nicolai is also a sound artist and cofounder of the record label “raster noton” under the pseudonym Alva Noto. Nicolai, who studied landscape design at university, views phenomena not as separate entities but as a composite whole, and pursues the creation of a new realm by combining various existing genres such as painting, sculpture, architecture, sound, the natural sciences, and philosophy. In recent years he has unveiled a series of laboratory-like pieces in which he offers the audience a visual/audio experience by transforming space.
KAWAI Masayuki,
Video Feedback Configuration No.18
Generator Cube/Mirrored Display, 2022
Cube: H60×W60×D60cm
Display: H98.5×W57×D55cm
Video processors, video mixers,
video monitor, cables, steel, stainless steel
© KAWAI Masayuki
photo: KIOKU Keizo

KAWAI Masayuki

Video Feedback Configuration No.18 Generator Cube/Mirrored Display, 2022
Video Feedback Configuration No.19 Plexiglass Box, 2023

Born in Osaka Prefecture, Japan in 1972; lives and works in Tokyo, Japan.
Kawai has been active as a video artist, and is particularly known for works that experiment with video feedback. His work explores the boundaries between digital and analog worlds through the use of technology, creating unique audiovisual experiences for the viewer by incorporating electronic free-running state and contingency. Kawai’s approaches evoke important debates in contemporary art, such as the relationship between technological exploration and artistic expression, and ethical questions of authorship and distributed agency.
NARAHARA Hiroko, Soul, 2000
H14.5×W88×D6cm
Glass
© NARAHARA Hiroko
photo: SAIKI Taku

NARAHARA Hiroko

Soul, 2000

Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan in 1979; lives and works there.
After entering the Department of Applied Arts & Design, Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts, Narahara Hiroko started working in glass. In her sophomore year, she fused a lump of glass and glass powder in a mold by applying heat, and came up with the technique of mixing transparent and semi-transparent glass. This discovery had a critical impact on her subsequent works, and her piece entitled Soul that she made in her senior year of university was awarded the first prize at the World Competition of Arts & Crafts Kanazawa 2001.
The same type of glass in two different states, a mass of glass and glass powder, were blended and produced a convection effect as a result of being heated, and the traces were left as they were inside the work. Consequently, actual tension in the movement of matter and something resembling a sign of life were revealed.
YAMAZAKI Tsuruko, Not a Triple Mirror, 1956 / 2007 (reproduction)
H330×W660cm
Dye, clear lacquer, vinyl thinner, tinplate
© YAMAZAKI Tsuruko
photo: SAIKI Taku

YAMAZAKI Tsuruko

Not a Triple Mirror, 1956 / 2007 (reproduction)
Sapphire, 2003
The Cans, 2007
Plot of Tin, 2011

Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan in 1925; died there in 2019.
Yamazaki Tsuruko was a founding member of the Gutai Art Association, which was formed in 1954. She later participated in the establishment of the Artist Union and took part in solo and group exhibitions where she presented a range of works including three-dimensional pieces made using sheets of tin, performances, and paintings. Throughout her decades-long career, Yamazaki has produced work on the themes of real and virtual images and sight/cognition/recreation that expresses her unique outlook on the relationship between the individual and the world.
Not a Triple Mirror consists of several sheets of tin coated with colorful dye joined together to form a work 3.3 meters tall and 6.6 meters wide. Created in 1956, this work was first exhibited at an outdoor Gutai exhibition entitled Triple Mirror. As the original piece is no longer extant, Yamazaki recreated it for an exhibition at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2007. The work was given its 1956 title without the approval of the artist, so at the request of Yamazaki it was changed to Not a Triple Mirror on the occasion of its recreation. Plot of Tin is a work that the artist created on-site as a special live painting for a collection exhibition held at the museum in 2011.

Images

Carsten NICOLAI, telefunken, 2000
Dimensions variable
CD, CD-Player, Sony HiBlack Trinitron TVs
© Carsten NICOLAI
photo: NAKAMICHI Atsushi / Nacása & Partners

YAMAZAKI Tsuruko, The Cans, 2007
Dimensions variable (60 pieces)
Dye, clear lacquer, vinyl thinner, tinplate
© YAMAZAKI Tsuruko
photo: SAIKI Taku

Credit

Organized by:

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)

Patronized by:

THE HOKKOKU SHIMBUN