Monique Frydman

2011.11.23(Wed.) - 2012.3.20(Tue.)

The 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa will present a major individual exhibition of the work of Monique FRYDMAN, an important French woman artist. Frydman has earned a solid reputation through solo exhibitions at many venues, including the Musée Matisse in France, La Verrière, The Hermès Foundation in Belgium, Passage de Retz in France and group shows like “elles @ centrepompidou” at the Centre Georges Pompidou in France. This is the first time she has appeared in an exhibition of this kind in a museum in Japan or any other Asian country. Frydman became a practicing artist in the late 1970s. Taking painting as her main form of expression, she has pursued the expression of color and light with a variety of materials, including canvas, pigment, pastels, and paper. The colors and images that emerge from the intimate and interactive dialogue between the artist’s body and the materials she uses penetrate the space in which the work is placed and adroitly transform the site. The artistic realm that she creates expresses complex aspects of human awareness and emotion and forms connections with our own memories and bodies. In recent years, she has made a number of site-specific installations with such materials as glass, Plexiglas, paper and cloth. In this exhibition, we will present 14 of her works, including three new installations resulting from a dialogue with the architectural space of this museum. Frydman unleashes her unique colors and light in the bright, white space of the museum, leaving mysterious reverberations in the space and in our hearts and minds.

The Ossu! Shugeibu and Hideki Toyoshima:

Jiga Daizessan - My Artwork Amazes Me

2011.11.23(Wed.) - 2012.3.20(Tue.)

In today’s society, with its passion for efficiency and ease of understanding, are we not inclined to seek guidelines—even in our creative activities, which by nature should be spontaneous and free? Are we not inclined to seek reasons and standards of evaluation for what to make and how to make it? The “gallant club members” of The Ossu! Shugeibu are men having no handicraft skills or experience, assembled by Bucho (Captain) Shoichi ISHIZAWA, a skilled creator. Proclaiming, “The Untrained Hand is Beautiful!,” they have continuously launched activities that value, above all, the spirit of fun and the individual’s desire to create. Their relaxed, humor-filled Bukatsu workshops, centered on seven core members, nimbly overturn the conventions we all unconsciously associate with handicrafts. Working in design, art, music, and event production, artist Hideki TOYOSHIMA has captured attention with activities that freely traverse genres. Discovering creative opportunities in his encounters with people and places, he creates new events out of relationships arising between things, people, and places. A mediator as well as a creator, he conceives his category-defying activities from his unique perspective as such. In this exhibition, The Ossu! Shugeibu and Hideki Toyoshima will meet for the first time. Toyoshima will interpret the spirit of The Ossu! Shugeibu’s artwork in creating an exhibition space where their activities can unfold.

Vietnamese Artist: Nguyen Phan Chanh Painting Restoration Project

2011.10.22(Sat.) - 2012.2.12(Sun.)

An exhibition introducing a restoration project to preserve the works of NGUYEN Phan Chanh (1892-1984), one of Vietnam’s foremost creators of silk paintings. Japanese artwork restoration techniques were employed to save precious silk paintings by Chanh that were deteriorating. Together with the restored works, a film on the restoration process will be offered, in an attempt to capture the project’s essence.

Silent Echoes: Collection Exhibition II

2011.9.17(Sat.) - 2012.4.8(Sun.)

How did it come? For a minute the opening balanced from one side to the other. Like a walk or march. Like God strutting in the night. The outside of her was suddenly froze and only that first part of the music was hot inside her heart. She could not even hear what sounded after, but she sat there waiting and froze, with her fists tight. After a while the music came again, harder and loud. It didn’t have anything to do with God. This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her – the real plain her.1 “Silent Echo: Collection Exhibition II” makes a special presentation of L’echo and Mistelpartition by TSE Su-Mei, an artist born in Luxembourg whose work resonates deeply with the world of music and human life conveyed by the above quote from Carson McCullers’s novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. This exhibition reveals possibilities of the museum collection that have seldom been discussed before. Through selected works from the museum collection, we highlight an artistic world created through a complete fusion of self, technique, and the world, which is exemplified by L’echo and Mistelpartition, artworks based on a process of connecting and blending a wide variety of phenomena related to the body, sound, technique, and the self. This show refers to a new vantage point that has emerged in recent years, a concept that might be called “craft-like formation.” It is based on a new way of evaluating artistic expression, appreciating art and artistic acts developed “as a result of intimate dialogue between makers and their materials, nature, the environment and the other, and the complete immersion of the maker in the process through which objects come into being.”2 We reexamine the art and artistic acts derived from a dialogue with self, other, and material in the work of TSE Su-Mei, Anish KAPOOR, AWAZU Kiyoshi, YAMAZAKI Tsuruko, KUZE Kenji, and KADONAGA Kazuo. Their work shows great strength as well as sensitivity in its quiet dialogues and resonances, telling stories of ways that people engage with and live in this world and revealing new possibilities and hope for living through troubled times. Notes 1. Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Mariner Books, p. 118. 2. FUDO Misato, “In the Process of Becoming”, Alternative Paradise, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2005, pp. 8-11. On the recent development of a theory of craft-like formation, see MURATA Daisuke, “Ron Mueck: Form as Dialogue”, Ron Mueck, Foil, 2008; “Anti-Gravity Structure – The Form as ‘History of History’”, Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History, Shinsozai Kenkyūjo, 2008; “The Form as ‘Knit Cafe in My Room”, “Knit Cafe in My Room” by Mitsuharu Hirose and Minako Nishiyama, 21st Century Museum of Art, Kanazawa, 2009; “What Would Hiroshi Sugimoto Do? What Would Museums Do? Deified Artist and Museum: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s ‘History of History,’” AAS-ISS Joint Conference, 2011 (http://www.asian-studies.org/Conference/index.htm).

Inner Voices

2011.7.30(Sat.) - 2011.11.6(Sun.)

How does everyone acknowledge their identities that are gradually established in the process of finding out their whereabouts in the world? Among artists of contemporary art who are dealing with various ways of expression while facing contemporary times, women artists indicate explicitly how keen they are on searching for their potential directions while shrugging off restrictions. It is because, when they try to escape from existing values and the old paradigm of reality to create another reality for themselves, it is essential for women to acquire freedom of self-decision---to be free of authority and commonly accepted ideas. Focusing on women artists who were born after the 1960s and rode on the waves of globalization along with the economic growth, this exhibition lends an ear to the Inner Voices of them who see both sides of life---difficulties and possibilities. In order to surmount barriers such as widely accepted images and values of “femininity,” misconceptions and lack of understanding that occur due to differences, they have chosen neither resistance nor confrontation. We are expecting that their works show us the ways they are working will reveal how universally important it is to be free in the expression of art, which is not limited to women only. *Shilpa Gupta, I Keep Falling At You will be displayed from September 10.

art-ZINE: Booklet - type Art Communication

2011.6.11(Sat.) - 2011.9.25(Sun.)

This exhibition applies the term “art-ZINE”to ZINEs published as a form of art and examines them as a new stage for creative expression. Unlike individually produced artworks, ZINEs are usually published in plural numbers. They are also distinct from the “art book.” As a medium that directly connects the publisher and readers through a personal distribution route, without going through the established book distribution system, the art-ZINE enables new approaches to communication. From this, new possibilities for art expression are also expected to come. Throughout the run of the exhibition, ZINEs gathered through public appeal will be displayed on shelves in the venue. Our aim is to put them out for everyone to look at, as we contemplate together the art-ZINE and its appeal.

Jeppe Hein 360°

2011.4.29(Fri.) - 2011.8.31(Wed.)

“360°” is the young Danish artist Jeppe Hein’s first solo exhibition at a Japanese art museum. Staged in seven galleries and in corridors, the exhibition offers ten works, including humorous installation works exploring the viewer’s relationship with art. The title, “360°,” while reflecting the Museum’s round design open in all directions, expresses Hein’s wish to draw viewers into involvement, and his desire to awaken new perceptions of spaces by means of artworks in motion using water, mirrors and light. “360°” will be an interactive exhibition offering playful encounters with spaces.

Silent Echoes: Collection Exhibition I

2011.4.29(Fri.) - 2011.7.18(Mon.)

How did it come? For a minute the opening balanced from one side to the other. Like a walk or march. Like God strutting in the night. The outside of her was suddenly froze and only that first part of the music was hot inside her heart. She could not even hear what sounded after, but she sat there waiting and froze, with her fists tight. After a while the music came again, harder and loud. It didn’t have anything to do with God. This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her – the real plain her. [Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Mariner Books, p. 118.] “Silent Echo: Collection Exhibition I” makes a special presentation of L’écho by TSE Su-Mei, an artist born in Luxembourg whose work resonates deeply with the world of music and human life conveyed by the above quote from Carson McCullers’s novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. This exhibition reveals possibilities of the museum collection that have seldom been discussed before. Through selected works from the museum collection, we highlight an artistic world created through a complete fusion of self, technique, and the world, which is exemplified by L’écho, an artwork based on a process of connecting and blending a wide variety of phenomena related to the body, sound, technique, and the self.

Peter McDonald: Visitor

2011.4.16(Sat.) - 2012.3.20(Tue.)

With this edition, the Kanazawa Youth Dream Challenge Art Programme (*1) breaks new ground by setting its sights on an overseas artist. The Program invites the young, internationally recognized, UK-based artist Peter McDonald to develop an art project for the first time in Japan, marking the first international edition of the Program. Through the “act of painting,” McDonald, at the core of the project, rubs shoulders with others, lightly traversing the boundary between genres, genders, countries and the everyday and the extraordinary. As young people (*2) participate in the work, they experience the diversity of and possibilities for communication. Beginning with a painting exhibition and the production of a wall installation at the museum, various extemporaneous programs will be held using the exhibition space as a stage. As McDonald interacts with the city and the people of Kanazawa, his painted world will permeate the city, establishing pliable onnections between one person and another, and between people and places through the fundamental language of expression we know as painting. *1. Launched in 2007 adopting the methodology of the Zon Moderna outreach program at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa's unique program takes the form of a long-term project-based exhibition involving an artist-in-residence, work-in-progress and workshops. Targeted mainly at young people 18-39 years of age, participants in the Programme work together to rediscover and to grow their view of themselves and of the world. Based on the results of the past four stagings of the Programme, 2011 marks its further development as a case-study compilation of the Museum's key concept of “museum as mediator”. *2. Participants Wall painting members (active April 20–June 5): 9 Project members (active June 5–end of March, 2012): 12

MADE-IN-JAPAN Table Clocks: Focusing on the 1960’s

2011.2.5(Sat.) - 2011.5.29(Sun.)

During Japan’s post-war economic recovery in the 1950s and 1960s, a style of design alien to traditional lifestyle sensibilities permeated the Japanese way of life under America’s influence. Among the items of that time, made-in-Japan clocks of brilliant plastic colors still strike a fresh impression. In this exhibition, we present some 400 table clocks of the Showa period.

Takashi Homma: New Documentary

2011.1.8(Sat.) - 2011.3.21(Mon.)

Photographs by Takashi Homma are known for reflecting dry sentiment of the times and giving us a feeling of distance toward the subject. Dealing with a variety of themes, such as architecture, ocean waves, children seen in Tokyo and suburban scenery, he has serialized many of them over the years. Keeping away from describing narrative or emotion, his neutral viewpoint captures the subject unemotionally, which is suitably called “new documentary” that leans towards neither expression nor record advancing from the age when the two were specifically questioned. While he has kept having “a documentative viewpoint” since the start of his career as a photographer, he has tackled possibilities of the photographic expression by “approaching photography as art.” Recently in particular, his creative activities pursuing more subjective expressions have broadened while openly dealing with the real world and the times. In this exhibition, not only his prints in the past but also his latest works using different methods and media, such as silk screens based on photos, installations to be viewed through binoculars, books full of images as well as paintings are introduced, raising a question of “what photography is.” They lead viewers to think about the meaning of “seeing” through the reality reflected on the photographs. For example, there is Trails in pursuit of the trail of deer hunting in a snow-covered mountain and a painting on the same subject. Tokyo and My Daughter, his lifework for which he continues taking a picture of Tokyo scenery and a girl, and Widows are works that he re-photographed so-called “found photos” discovered in family albums of the protagonists. Thus, he intervenes, going beyond the limits of time, in photographed people’s eyes turned upon their families and friends. Homma’s new work re-construction is a collection of works made into a book form, in which he re-photographed magazine covers and pages he edited. Others include exhibition leaflets, posters and their proof sheets, which reveal how lightly he has been working all over media of different kinds. You may say that to re-photograph by his own hands what he photographed is a reviewing act in itself of photography as a medium. For the display of this exhibition, Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA designed a booth in the area connecting exhibition rooms. With its light, graceful space arrangement, Homma’s works are all the more impressive.

Untitled: Tadaaki Kuwayama

2011.1.8(Sat.) - 2011.3.21(Mon.)

Fifty years after his first solo exhibition in 1961, contemporary artist Tadaaki Kuwayama continues to challenge established art concepts in his quest for “Pure Art.” Kuwayama moved to the United States in 1958, after studying Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. There, he established his own expressive style, employing the materials of Nihonga in paintings that went to extremes to expel meaning and emotion from the picture surface. In the 1970s, his work took on materiality as a result of his selection of neutral colors and inorganic materials. By the 1990s, this work had evolved into spatial constructions employing repetitive panels of artificial mood. This exhibition features new works giving maximum play to the distinctive architectural spaces of this museum, such as its galleries of varying sizes and proportions, and courtyards. Through Kuwayama’s Project for 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, we will have opportunity to experience his continually evolving art in its current form.

D&DEPARTMENT PROJECT

Only honest design can be recyclable.

2010.10.9(Sat.) - 2011.1.30(Sun.)

New designs are being generated continuously as the time change. Not only the products but also the designs of the products are being consumed in the lifecycle model of modern consumption which is heavily dependent on trends. D&DEPARTMENT PROJECT focuses on the fact that there are used “long-life designed” products which remain in society and is offering/practicing the recycling model, that is a way to recycle products at the scene of consumption. This recycle model includes the following steps. 1.Selecting the long life designed/second hand products and selling them, 2.repurchasing products from buyers and 3.resselling them to new consumers. Our aim is to present the idea that we can create a new market and avoid the disappearance of designs if there is a system where products can be sold a number of times and used over many years. In this exhibition, D&DEPARTMENT PROJECT’s course of actions (choosing and purchasing “long life designs” that should be conserved over the years out of the products relinquished by the consumers) is divided into three parts and presented in three terms (exhibitions). Kenmei Nagaoka’s statement can be seen from here. Only honest design can be recyclable.

Collection Exhibition: Invisible Reality

2010.9.11(Sat.) - 2011.4.10(Sun.)

An exhibition featuring pieces from the museum collection, which consists primarily of works produced since the 1980s. The Collection Exhibition presents important artworks reflecting the changing values and transitions of contemporary society and, by weaving complex perspectives into their presentation, explores social issues.

Tadasu Takamine Good House, Nice Body

2010.4.29(Thu.) - 2011.3.21(Mon.)

Contemporary artist TAKAMINE Tadasu has continually cast light on social issues employing his own experiences and body. “TAKAMINE Tadasu: Good House, Nice Body,” is a long-term project composed of two parts, “Good House” and “Nice Body.” For approximately one year, through their own physical involvement, numerous project participants will re-examine the attitudes we hold toward our “house” and “body”—attitudes that grow obtuse in day-to-day life despite the vital importance our house and body have for us as abodes for our existence.