The Towada Art Center is pleased to present LONELY PLANETS, the first solo museum exhibition by internationally acclaimed artist and filmmaker Yu ARAKI, from Saturday, December 9, 2023, to Sunday, March 31, 2024.
Having spent his youth moving between Japan and the United States, Yu Araki explores the nuances of language and culture, examining the mistranslations and misunderstandings that arise, as well as the dynamics between originals and copies and the power structures they reveal. His film and video works, which often employ a blend of documentary and animation, are known for their humorous yet insightful approach.
The exhibition’s title, LONELY PLANETS, was inspired by a misheard song lyric that resonated with Araki due to its similarity to the name of the globally recognized travel guidebook series. This title reflects Araki’s journey through Aomori and his experiences and encounters with the people, landscapes, and motifs that appear in the exhibition as if he were a traveler exploring unfamiliar territory. The exhibition showcases four new video works developed through Araki’s extensive research, alongside three past works (tentative). These pieces, like independent planets, each with their own orbits, coincidentally converge in the heart of winter in Towada, inviting viewers into one galaxy within Araki’s creative universe.
現工作、生活於上海的劉建華於十和田市現代美術館舉辦首度於日本的個人展覽。劉受訓於陶瓷發源地的景德鎮，曾在當地陶瓷廠工作，後入讀江西景德鎮陶瓷學院（現景德鎮陶瓷大學）學習雕塑。他的作品主題圍繞中國的經濟和社會變化及隨之而來的問題，用木、石、金屬、玻璃、影像、陶瓷等綜合媒材，製作雕塑和裝置藝術。
是次展覽的主展廳展出由寶特瓶、鞋子等組成的陶瓷作品《遺棄》（2002年/2022年）。我們使用的日常之物，經常在完成其短暫的用途後被忽視，就像壞掉的垃圾一樣。這件作品，讓人反思我們的生活中充滿著不能回歸土壤的物質，以及我們如何不停累積這些不能被土地自然分解的東西。除此之外，本館亦展現劉建華早期至近年的作品，其中包括呈現瓶壺口頸的最新作品《塔器》(2022年)、與本館常設展品《痕跡》（2010年）造型相似的《日常•易碎》（2001年-2003年）浮遊枕頭、形如牆上的墨汁或瓷器表面釉藥滴落的作品《跡象》(2011年)。展題《傾注中空（中空を注ぐ）》，不單讓人聯想空心的陶瓷器和流動的釉藥，亦反映著劉的創作理念──「無意義、無內容」。同時，體現出現代世界正充斥著空虛的「事」與「物」。以精緻卻又脆弱的陶瓷，講述一個被空虛感填滿的現代故事。
First Solo Museum Exhibition by Emerging Artist Aya Momose
The Towada Art Center is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Aya Momose from December 10, 2022, to June 4, 2023. Momose is known for her video works, which explore perspectives surrounding the body, sexuality, and gender on themes across multiple layers of communication. In Momose’s latest exhibition, female voice actors take center stage. In Japan, female actors often voice young male characters in anime productions, such as Megumi Ogata’s voicing of Shinji Ikari in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Mayumi Tanaka playing the role of Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece. Momose explores the fluid relationship between the gender of the voice actor and that of the character they inhabit. Through new and past works exploring these themes, this exhibition lends a voice to the marginalized and underrepresented groups who lack one.
Image: Social Dance, 2019
Single-channel video, 10′ 33″
*Reference work
A series of video installations around Towada City by interdisciplinary artist Aoyagi Natsumi
Towada Art Center will hold a solo exhibition of the artist Aoyagi Natsumi at its satellite venue space from Saturday, September 17 to Sunday, December 18, 2022.
In her practice, Aoyagi Natsumi uses moving image and writing to capture the invisible and engage with her surrounding environment. In recent years, she has explored the contemporary nature of the individual as well as ways to observe this through crowdsourcing and collecting the stories and images of others.
Marking her first solo show in six years, the exhibition presents artworks in the form of a fictional nautical logbook inspired by the Chinese sea goddess Mazu, belief in whom spread through sea travel. A ship or boat is no longer a means of transport that most of us use regularly in our everyday lives, but was once the only way of traveling to a distant place and enabled people to embark on dangerous adventures to unknown lands. From records of sea voyages to science fiction’s spacecraft, ships have appeared in countless examples of literature over the centuries. Belief in the sea goddess Mazu spread across East Asia as seafarers moved around the region. Cocktails are said to have developed as a way of keeping sailors hydrated and healthy during long sea voyages in the Age of Discovery. The exhibition features video installations interweaving such nautical elements from past and present, East and West, and unfolding like a picture book across six locations in Towada: the art center’s satellite venue, space, and its café as well as a flower shop, spa, and two bars. The hopes and struggles of the vast numbers of people who crossed the seas in the past, along with the living creatures, alcoholic drinks, and beliefs rooted in each place. The shipless logbook that Aoyagi creates invites us, living as we do in uncertain times, to embark on a journey where we encounter these people and things, still quietly living in our present-day world.
*Translations of each exhibit are available via the following link. PDF
