2001.1.12 [Fri] - 3.18 [Sun]

"Encounter"

The Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery is holding an exhibition titled "Encounter" to encourage encounters with new art in the new century. Many encounters take place in life. Similarly, artistic expression in recent years has transcended the framework of the Exhibition and the Art Gallery and we are now able to see works of art that are the result of 'encounters' with people in society as a whole and the result of 'encounters' with areas which previously had only a tenuous connection with art. There is also an increasing number of works that result from 'encounters' with the circumstances and phenomena in our environment where artists have attempted to discover artistic value in the process or development of the work itself or in their selection of techniques and materials of expression for their work. Although the fundamentals of artistic expression is arguably to look and observe, in any new creative activity, it is essential to continue to observe everyday phenomena with a fresh outlook and to improve our powers of observation and not to allow the everyday to become mundane. During the twentieth century, Duchamp and Beuys as well as the artists involved and influenced by Fluxus attempted to deviate from the framework of modern art and to realize a fusion between art and society and the everyday, and their attitude and outlook continue to affect artists and observers today. As indicated by the title of the exhibition, the theme of the "Encounter" exhibition is the encounters with strangers and with the circumstances and phenomena that surround us. "Encounter" will explore how contemporary artists observe their environment, the kinds of encounters that they are moved by and how these encounters are translated into their art through the work of 6 groups of Japanese and overseas artists. Furthermore, through a variety of performances, lectures, artist's discussions and other events that will be held at the Gallery concurrently with the exhibition, we shall also be providing a positive opportunity for communication that transcends the existing perception of the exhibition as a relationship between "art" and the "observer". We hope that this exhibition will provide a venue for new "encounters" that will enrich our lives in the 21st century.

Anne Daems Daems' work features photography, drawing and video and is based on the ordinary scenes and people that the artist encounters in everyday life. An image is 'clipped' from these everyday scenes, and Daems' natural and simple powers of observation and humorous and yet delicate sensibility are evident in the resulting work, through which a unique story is told. In addition to Daems' drawings, videos and the 18 photographs of items that have been left behind on supermarket shelves, a new series of work depicting individuals drinking beer alone in a bar at the train station on the way home will be shown in this Exhibition.

Untitled 47 X 71cm 1999 Courtesy: Anne Daems + Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp

Plamen Dejanov and Swetlana Heger Dejanov and Heger began working collaboratively in 1995 and have achieved fame through projects that turn the relationship between the art exhibition or the work of art, and its support system or the market economy onto its head. These projects include For Rent, in which the space allocated for a group exhibition is sub-let to a third party, and the series Plenty of Objects of Desire, a collection of work by other artists and designers purchased with the income that Dejanov and Heger received for non-artistic work and the fees paid to them to produce work for the Exhibition. In Quite Normal Luxury, which began in 1999, Dejanov and Heger found themselves in the center of a controversy as a result of this project with BMW. In the "Encounter" exhibition, part of the collection that the two artists have amassed to date will be shown.

Quite Normal Luxury (Weekend) 1999 - 2001 photo by NAKANO Masataka

Watanabe Eiji Watanabe Eiji's extremely poetic and humorous work is a magnificent fusion of material and concept, as is evident in The Memory of Things in which 40,000 white dice are randomly placed on the floor with just the number '1' painted in red, Garden of Appellation in which several thousand pictures cut from a British encyclopedia of plants and fungi are fixed to the floor with wire and Origin of the Face in which a simple facial shape is etched from an industrial ceramic filter and through which one is able to see the other side only when looking at the face from a certain angle. In addition to Garden of Appellation and Origin of the Face, many other works by Watanabe will be shown, including his new work Nudist, in which the artist has attempted to transform a three dimensional form into a two dimensional form by slashing children's rubber balls.

Garden of the Appellation 1992 - 2001 Photo by NAKANO Masataka

Jan Fabre + Ilya Kabakov Jan Fabre and Ilya Kabakov will be showing the video A Meeting that was produced for the symposium "Jan Fabre, Conductor of Coincidence " held at Tokyo Opera City in 1997. This video features a fascinating conversation between Fabre as a gold beetle and Kabakov as a fly and is set in the basement of a building in New York. The artists are conducting a conversation with a strong element of fantasy on the subject of social structures, including the art world, as seen from the artists themselves or from the viewpoint of the gold beetle and the fly which symbolize, to these two artists, differing cultural and linguistic backgrounds. After this, the work, with the addition of footage of the conversation carried out on the roof of the same building, the drawings related to the film and costumes used during filming, toured nine countries in Europe. This work, the result of an encounter between two major international artists, is not to be missed.

Een ontmoeting / Vstrecha (a Meeting) 1997 Suite for the Fly and Beetle 1997 photo by NAKANO Masataka

SHIMABUKU + Nomura Makoto Through Shimabuku's work, from Octopus Rd. Project in which the artist takes an octopus from his birthplace Akashi to the Japan Sea, through to Shimabuku-Shimafukurou [striped owl] in which the artist travels from Kagoshima to Hokkaido to see a striped owl, In Search of Deer set in Ibaraki Prefecture and I'm Traveling with 165-metre Mermaid which began in Sydney, the very process involved towards the realization of Shimabuku's aim as well as his "encounters" with the various individuals, animals and the stories surrounding them are revealed. Nomura Makoto, a composer of contemporary music, first formed a band "pou-fou" while at University, and went on to form "Street Band" with Shimabuku in 1993. In recent years, Nomura has been searching for possibilities in composition by collaborating with the residents of a home for the aged. Shimabuku and Nomura first met in 1993, and have since continued to share diverse concepts such as that concept behind the joint production "Music Power to Kobe" (York, England) of 1995 while, at the same time, creating their own individual work. In this exhibition, the two artists will be performing together in a new project, their first for three and a half years, titled "TAKOTOTANUKI - Shimabuku Nomura Art Foundation".

"TAKOTOTANUKI - Shimabuku Nomura Art Foundation" 2001 photo by NAKANO Masataka

Jun Yang In the work of Jun Yang, who was born in China and raised in Europe, the artist makes the most of his background through transcending the level of exoticism, producing art that depicts acts which could be carried out by anyone in everyday life and imbuing it with humor. Yang's work includes From Salariiman to Superman in which a man goes into a passport photo booth on a street corner and transforms himself from an ordinary office worker into Superman, from... with pictograms of conversations with strangers on a plane and instructions on how to greet someone that one meets for the first time, AS I SAW, in which on each day of the Exhibition, a photograph is selected from the previous day's newspaper and the same scene reenacted on stage using only scissors, tape and newspaper and At my Stage in which a photograph of this re-enacted scene is then placed daily in the local newspaper. The Tokyo version of Yang's work will be presented in a new format in the "Encounter" exhibition.

from...J./ how to do that ? 2001 Courtesy: artist + Raum Aktueller Kunst Martin Janda photo by NAKANO Masataka

Related Events

1 = Preliminary event - "Shimabuku and Nomura Makoto: Our current thoughts and ideas" 2000.12.10 [Sun] 14:00 - 2 = "Tone Yasunao Performance" 2001.1.21 [Sun] 14:00 - Tone was involved in the formation of the improvised music group "Group Music" in 1960. His work was then introduced to Europe and the United States through Fluxus, after which the artist moved to the United States in 1972. He is deeply involved in creative activities that are a fusion of contemporary digital culture and an avant-garde and experimental mentality. 3 = "Akasegawa Genpei Lecture: "Why coincidence?" 2001.2.12 [Mon] 14:00 - Akasegawa Genpei, whose career as an artist and writer began in the 1960's continues to record the many coincidences that take place around him in his Diary of Coincidences. Akasegawa continues to give meaning to "the encounter" through work such as Street Observations and The Leica League and this lecture will shed light on Akasegawa's thoughts surrounding coincidence.

Information

Dates: 12 January [Fri] - 18 March [Sun] 2001 Opening Hours: 12:00 - 20:00 (to 21:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, entry up to 30 minutes before closing) Closed: Mondays (Tuesday if the Monday is a public holiday), 11 February [Sun] Admission: Ordinary:900 yen (700 yen), College and high school students: 700 yen (550yen), Junior high and elementary school students: 500 yen (400 yen), Children below school age: free *The ticket is valid for during the exhibition term. Please produce the ticket and your ID card at reentry. *Admission includes entrance for Terada Gallery *Amounts in brackets ( ) are rates for groups 15 or more. Organizered by the Tokyo Opera City Cultural Foundation Sponsored by Nippon Life Insurance Company / NTT Urban Development Co. / Odakyu Railway Co.,Ltd. / The Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company Supported by Yamadai Tetsusho / Sogo Bussan / Asahi Breweries, Ltd. / Austrian Embassy / Austrian Airlines Patronized by Embassy of Belgium,Representation of Flanders For further information: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery Tel. +81-3-5353-0756