Starting on November 1, void+ will present Unknown Image Series no.8 #1 YAMAMOTO Ayaka “organ.”
The Unknown series of exhibitions, launched in 2011, are planned and coordinated by independent curator Kato Chika. This eighth exhibition takes the title “Unknown Image,” and will be staged as a group show by five artists in the format of consecutive solo exhibitions at HIGURE 17-15 cas and void+.
Featured in the first show is Yamamoto Ayaka, who majored in painting at Kyoto Seika University’s Faculty of Arts, but began producing photographs during a student exchange in the United States. Recent years have seen Yamamoto traveling to parts of the world where her own knowledge, experience and language do not apply, and shooting portraits of girls she meets there. She has thrown herself enthusiastically into the project, visiting Eastern European nations including Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and Belarus, and this year traveling to Africa for the first time, to take photos in Malawi.
Unknown Image Series no.8 #1 YAMAMOTO Ayaka “organ” will present a new work on video by Yamamoto, along with a selection of photographic works. In conjunction with the exhibition, a talk event will also be held, featuring, in addition to the artist, guests Mitsuda Yuri, curator at Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, and Nakamura Fumiko, curator at Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art.
<Exhibition data>
■Title: Unknown Image Series no. 8 #1 YAMAMOTO Ayaka ”organ” ■Dates/Hours: Friday, November 1 – Saturday, November 30, 2019 14:00–19:00 • Opening reception: Friday, November 1 19:00–21:00 •Talk event: Friday, November 29 19:00–20:30 YAMAMOTO Ayaka + MITSUDA Yuri (Curator, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art)+ NAKAMURA Fumiko (Curator, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art) ■Venue: void+ 3-16-14, 1F Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo ■Closed: Sundays, Mondays, holidays ■Admission: free ■Inquires: Tel: 03-5411-0080 Email: info@voidplus.jp
Organized by: Unknown executive committee / void+ committee Conceived and planned by: KATO Chika Supported by: Minato City Cultural Arts Support Project With cooperation from: Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film, YN Associates Equipment provided by: Sony Marketing Inc.
*Preschoolers welcome. Wheelchair users please let us know in advance.
When I first visited Latvia in 2011, I was woken every morning by my friend, humming. To me this felt like the continuation of a pre-verbal voice, the emission of memories unconsciously accumulating within her, in the form of sound images. The sensation was one of experiencing the very time she had traveled, at a different level from conversation. Her voice, released, become part of my body, and emitting it again in my own voice causes it to circulate and connect to others. An organ may be a body organ or a musical instrument; in Japanese the character (器) read as ki or utsuwa has these meanings, while also referring to a vessel. Back in the mists of time, the sound of a bell used in rituals, reverberating in the cavity of that bell, would apparently cause the wearer to be possessed by some invisible presence, or have such a presence circulating within them. Hopefully the sounds harbored by the body as empty vessel will put us in touch with glimmers of yet unseen things found in its depths.
Yamamoto’s photographs, at first glance reminiscent of classical paintings, show “creatures” of almost unreal beauty. The girls appear either to be vacantly staring at some point in the distance, or have their eyes closed as if dead. Or they wear a mask or veil, making it impossible to even see their expression, although something remains in the body wearing the mask, or visible faintly behind the veil. What is it? Yamamoto deliberately sets out to take photographs in countries where she does not speak the language, constructing images in collaboration with her subjects via non-verbal communication. The process of peeling away the layers that go to make up an individual and clothing them in new garb apparently, in the end, creates a moment in which the subject sheds her self-consciousness. Photo shoots that strip away literally everything previous—the clothes the person was wearing, their name, memories, self-consciousness—to give them a totally new appearance, are filled with the intrinsic violence of photography. Yet the artist says that no matter how much she endeavors to denude her subjects of their attributes, deep down, something remains. What has Yamamoto identified there? By photographing strangers from other countries, what question does she continually ask? These tranquil portraits serve at once as inquiries on the part of the artist, and the very riddle of images. In this solo outing, Yamamoto will present a video work, shot in Latvia in 2019. The organ/body as empty vessel, sings a song without words. This generates further questions about what kind of sounds are harbored by the empty vessel placed in a video/time.
KATO Chika (Unknown Series curator)
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<作家プロフィール>
山元彩香| YAMAMOTO Ayaka
1983年 兵庫県生まれ。2006年 京都精華大学 芸術学部 造形学科洋画コース卒業。言語による意思疎通が難しい状況下での撮影は、写真というメディアが本質的に抱える性質以上に他者との様々な接点を作家にもたらし、以降、暴力的でありながらも魅力的なイメージ生成の場とも言えるポートレートの撮影を続ける。主な個展に「We are Made of Grass, Soil, and Trees」(タカ・イシイギャラリー フォトグラフィー/フィルム、2018)、「Nous n'irons plus au bois」(同、2014)など。主に東欧各地で撮影を行い、国内外で写真展やレジデンスに参加。2019年に写真集『We are Made of Grass, Soil, and Trees』(T&M Projects、2018)が「さがみはら写真新人奨励賞」を受賞。
YAMAMOTO Ayaka Born 1983 in Hyogo, Japan. BFA in painting, Kyoto Seika University, Faculty of Fine Art. In a situation in which communication through words was difficult, photography took on a value beyond its intrinsic nature, serving as a point of contact with others. Since then, Yamamoto has continued to take in a certain sense violent, yet alluring portraits. Solo exhibitions include ”We are Made of Grass, Soil, and Trees” (Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film, 2018) and “Nous n’irons plus au bois” (Taka Ishii Gallery Photography/Film, 2014). She photographs mainly in Eastern Europe, and has participated in photo exhibitions and residencies in Japan and overseas. She won the 19th Sagamihara Prize for Newcomer Professionals in 2019 for her photobook We are Made of Grass, Soil, and Trees(T&M Projects, 2018).
MITSUDA Yuri Curator, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, specializing in modern/contemporary art history and history of photography. Recent exhibitions include ”Painting into Sculpture – Embodiment in Form” (Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, 2019), “Talking about Art – The Viewpoint of Yusuke Nakahara” (also at KMDMA, 2016), “Mirror Behind Hole: Photography into Sculpture“ (gallery αM, 2017), and “Hi-Red Center: “The Documents of ‘Direct Action’” (Shoto Museum of Art, 2008). Among her published writings are Words and Things: Jiro Takamatsu’s issue(Suiseisha, 2011),Shashin, “geijutsu” to no kaimen ni[Photography, in its interface with “art”] (Seikyusha, 2006; winner of the Photographic Society of Japan AwardsScholastic Achievement Award), and Nakaji Yasui photographer 1903–1942(Kyodo News, 2014, Ringa Prize).
中村史子|NAKAMURA Fumiko
愛知県美術館学芸員。専門は視覚文化、写真、コンテンポラリーアート。担当した主な展覧会に「これからの写真」(2014)、「魔術/美術」(2012)、「放課後のはらっぱ」(2009)など。また、若手作家を個展形式で紹介する「APMoA Project, ARCH」を企画し、伊東宣明(2015)、飯山由貴(2015)、梅津庸一(2017)、万代洋輔(2017)を紹介。2017年にはタイでグループ展「Play in the Flow」を企画、実施。
NAKAMURA Fumiko Curator, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, specializing in visual culture, photography and contemporary art. Responsible for exhibitions including “Photography Will Be” (2014), “Art as Magic” (2012) and “In the Little Playground” (2009), as well as for planning “APMoA Project, ARCH” presenting young artists in a solo show format, which to date has featuredItohNobuaki (2015), Iiyama Yuki (2015), Umetsu Yoichi (2017) and Bandai Yosuke (2017). In 2017, she planned and implemented the group show “Play in the Flow” in Thailand.
Exploring the power and essence possessed by images, to create unknown images.
A vast number of images are generated every day in this world, only to vanish, but just occasionally, some extraordinary images do emerge. The artists in this eighth Unknown exhibition are Mitamura Midori, Yokoyama Nami, Suzuki Nozomi, Yamamoto Ayaka, and Shoji Asami, who will stage consecutive solo shows. Those serving as guests for the talk events for each of these shows, and providing the texts, will include Mitsuda Yuri, Umezu Gen, Iida Shihoko, Nakamura Fumiko, and Nakao Takuya. After the series is finished a bilingual document will be produced, thus extending the exhibition into another form of expression, that of the book.
Images made by women
The Unknown Image series is also an opportunity to delve deeply into the individual work of some of today’s most noteworthy artists and their worlds, identifying further possibilities for each. This time, albeit not by design, all the artists are female.
Yamamoto Ayaka, featured in the first of the exhibitions, travels to countries where she does not speak the language, and takes portrait photographs suffused with a beauty and violence verging on the mystical. What is it that remains even when everything is stripped from her subjects, down to their names and consciousness, in an attempt to turn them into empty vessels? Suzuki Nozomi is a quiet explorer of the principles of photography and time. Endowing non-living things with a “gaze” and “memory” she gives her photos something like a physical body. Yokoyama Nami blends the vast history of painting and small personal histories to depict the beauty of everyday, insignificant things and what lies behind the bright and shiny. Shoji Asami’s lines create a narrative quality that draws the viewer in like a stage, and a corporeal painterly space suffused with the energy of life and death. Mitamura Midori is the artist in this series with the longest career. Her many very personal images and words are presented in photographs, videos, objects, drawings and installations, that go beyond individual stories or the confines of art, taking on a universal quality that irrevocably captures the heart of the viewer. The guests, meanwhile, are a varied lineup in terms of age and gender, but all individuals on the frontlines of art creation, of superb critical talent.
Once a marginal presence in art history, female artists are now at its cutting edge. What kind of images do these artists make? Why have they felt the need to produce them? The artists participating in these exhibitions have different origins and career trajectories, different ways of engaging with their themes, with history and current circumstances, and different aims. Yet their presence, and the images they create, are without exception strong and vibrant. Their unknown images will quietly shake the viewer to the core, and likely serve as a force for many types of change in the world.
YAMAMOTO Ayaka @void+ Friday, November 1 – Saturday, November 30, 2019 Talk event: Friday, November 29 19:00–20:30 YAMAMOTO Aya + MITSUDA Yuri (Curator, Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art)+ NAKAMURA Fumiko (Curator, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art)
SUZUKI Nozomi @ void+ Summer 2020 (TBD) Talk event:SUZUKI Nozomi + UMEZU Gen (Curator, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama / Art Studies) TBC Text: UMEZU Gen
SUZUKI Nozomi Born 1983 in Saitama, Japan.Currently in the doctorate course of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts.Attempts to visualize, through the principles of photography, the memories resembling latent images submerged in innocuous everyday objects. Fixing photographs, which have the characteristic of being present yet absent, directly to objects, assigns photographs something like a tactile body, suspending passing time in the now. Recent group exhibitions include “In the middle of tomorrow and yesterday” (Hajimari Art Center, 2019), “MOT Satellite 2018 Fall: To Become a Narrative” (Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, 2018), “Photographs of Innocence and of Experience: Contemporary Japanese Photography vol.14” (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2017), and “New Vision Saitama 5: The Emerging Body” (The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2016). Among her many awards, she was recipient of the POLA Art Foundation Grant for Overseas Research in 2018, under which she is currently studying in the UK.
SHOJI Asami Born 1988 in Fukushima, Japan. Earned her MFA in printmaking in 2012 from Tama Art University (Tokyo). ”A line is drawn. It is not necessarily a borderline of the kind dividing heaven and earth, but perhaps a space that opens up through movement, like that of a creature that crawls along the ground, leaving a track in sand or mud. In our lives we are continuously inheriting a world imagined by someone.” Despite not having a specific narrative, Shoji’s paintings reveal various stories to the viewer. They also spawn a living painterly space of circulating free physical sensation, through the spatial experience of painting. Solo shows include”Tomorrow’s Unseen Mythologies” (gallery21yo-j, 2019), “Diagram of the Mud”(Cale, 2018), “A Painter in the Theater” (gallery21yo-j, 2017), and “During the Night” (Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya,2017). Grand Prix winner at the “FACE 2019” Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Art Awards.
横山奈美 | YOKOYAMA Nami
1986年 岐阜県生まれ。2012年 愛知県立芸術大学大学院 美術研究科 油画版画領域修了。捨てられる寸前の身の回りの物や、ネオン管の裏側に隠された器具や配線といった主役にはならないものに光を当てることで、そのものが持つ役割の枠を取り払い、すべてのものに備わる根源的な美しさと存在意義を表現する。近年は、「LOVE」の意味を問いかける油画とドローイングを続けて発表している。主な展示に、アペルト10「LOVEと私のメモリーズ」(金沢21世紀美術館、2019)、「日産アートアワード2017」(BankART Studio NYK)、「手探りのリアリズム」(豊田市美術館、2014)、「Draw the World-世界を描く」(アートラボあいち、2013)など。 主な受賞に「日産アートアワード2017オーディエンス賞」などがある。
YOKOYAMA Nami Born 1986 in Gifu, Japan. Earned her MFA in painting in 2012 from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. By shining a light on things that never take center stage, such as familiar objects in the moment before their discarding, and the fittings and wiring hidden behind neon signs, Yokoyama does away with the parameters of the roles played by these things to express the fundamental beauty and raison d’etre possessed by all things. Her recent drawings and paintings continue to question the meaning of love. Solo and group exhibitions include “Aperto 10: Memories of Love and Me” (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2019), “Nissan Art Award 2017” (BankART Studio NYK), “Reaching for the Real” (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, 2014),and “Draw the World” (Art Lab Aichi, 2013). Recipient of the Nissan Art Award 2017 Audience Award.
三田村光土里| MITAMURA Midori
1964年 愛知県生まれ。1994年 現代写真研究所 基礎科修了。「人が足を踏み入れられるドラマ」をテーマに、日常の記憶や追憶のモチーフを、写真や映像、日用品、言語など様々なメディアと組み合わせ、私小説の挿話のような空間作品を国内外で発表。近年の主な個展に、グラン・カナリア(スペイン)での「If not here, then I’m somewhere else」(Galeria Manuel Ojeda、2018)、「Art & Breakfast」(CAAM – Atlantic Center of Modern Art、2017)がある。展覧会ではイギリスの「フォークストン・トリエンナーレ2017」関連企画「Leaving Language」、国内では、「あいちトリエンナーレ 2016」(愛知芸術文化センター)など。2019年にはウィーンで、日本−オーストリア国交150周年記念展「Japan Unlimited」に参加。
MITAMURA Midori Born 1964 in Aichi, Japan. Completed the fundamentals course at The Institute of Contemporary Photographyin 1994. Taking as her theme “dramas that people can step into,” Mitamura combines motifs of everyday memories and reminiscences with various media such as photography and video, household goods and language, presenting in Japan and further afield spatial works that resemble an episode of an autobiographical novel. Recent solo exhibitions include ”If not here, then I’m somewhere else.” (Galeria Manuel Ojeda, 2018) and “Art & Breakfast” (CAAM – Atlantic Center of Modern Art, 2017)both in Gran Canaria, Spain. Among her group show participations are “Leaving Language,” a collateral program of the Folkestone Triennial 2017in the UK, and Aichi Triennale 2016 (Aichi Arts Center) in Japan. In 2019, she will participate in “Japan Unlimited,” an exhibition staged in Vienna commemorating 150 years of friendship between Austria and Japan.
UMEZU Gen Curator, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, specializing in art studies. Exhibitions he has organized/co-organized at MOMAS include ”DECODE / Events & Materials: The Work of Art in the Age of Post-Industrial Society” (2019), “A View of Prints: Trajectory of the Gendai Hanga Center” (2018), “100th Birth Anniversary, Q Ei” (2011), “Artist Project: Toward the Emergence of Sekine Nobuo’s Phase – Mother Earth” (2005), “Donald Judd 1960–1991” (1999), and “Visualization in the End of the 20th Century” (1994), as well as “Trans / Real: The Potential of Intangible Art” (2016-17,Gallery αM). He has contributed a great number of essays to the art magazine Bijutsu Techo, as well as to art catalogues and books.
IIDA Shihoko Curator. Worked at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery from 1998, when it was preparing for inauguration, until 2009, where her major exhibitions included“Wolfgang Tillmans: Freischwimmer” (2004) and “Trace Elements: Spirit and Memory in Japanese and Australian Photomedia” (2008/Performance Space, Sydney, 2009). She was a visiting curator at Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane from 2009 through 2011, and has since co-curated successive international art exhibitions. Associate professor at Tokyo University of the Arts for the academic years 2014–2017. She was Chief Curator (Head of Curatorial Team) of Aichi Triennale 2019.
NAKAO Takuya Art critic. PhD in art. Writes criticism on modern and contemporary art. In particular, has been exploring the connections between living (or non-art) and creative practice from the perspective of chess, in which Marcel Duchamp was also engrossed. His 2014 essay, “The Plastic, in Disappearance: From Marcel Duchamp’s Chess” received honorable mention in the 15th (1000th Issue Commermorative) Bijutsu TechoArt Writing Competition. His book Marcel Duchamp and Chesswas published by Heibonsha in 2017. Recent published writings include “One’s Public, Fifty or One Hundred Years Later: Reconsidering Marcel Duchamp Studies in Japan”(Bijutsu Techo, February 2019).