>>> Japanese
"Non-self"
The exhibition by Rosa Doornenbal
Date: March 26 (Sat) - 31 (Thu) 12:00 - 19:00 *Open daily / Admission Free
Opening Reception: March 26 (Sat), 18:00 - 20:30 *19:00 - Performance Lecture by the artist
Venue: Higure 17-15 cas (Tokyo)
Organizer: Arts Initiative Tokyo, with support from The Mondriaan Fonds Foundation, and with cooperation from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tokyo.
Left: Shapes of my Pinkish Purity / 2016 / Collages, fabric, ceramic, 410 mm × 620 mm
Right: Calming Balming / 2016 / Single channel video (color, sound)
Non-self
AIT is pleased to host the exhibition, "Non-self" by Rosa Doornenbal. The exhibition opens on Saturday March 26 through Thursday March 31 at Higure 17-15 cas in Tokyo. Doonenbal is from Amsterdam, The Netherlands and currently staying in Tokyo as an artist-in-residence with AIT.
If a tearoom can contain the universe, how can the tea bowl create emptiness?
In the history of the Japanese Tea Ceremony its specific aesthetic language got more and more defined, while at the same time, the ceremony still functions as a moment to escape reality and focus on the very moment of making and drinking tea. After leaving your worldly desires behind you, you will enter a spiritual realm and hopefully transcend the 'self'. Though, walking through the streets of a present-day urban landscape, another reality checks in. A contemporary pop culture with its own conceptions of beauty; where girls will always be young and eyes are excessively big.
'Non-self' is a visual exploration of the aesthetic ideologies of two contradicting but yet very explicit visual cultures. It tries to grasp their spiritual and signifying fundamental.
- Rosa Doornenbal
In Doornenbal's interdisciplinary practice, she investigates how formal, cultural and social aspects influence the appreciation of, and identification with objects in everyday life. The parallel of this in the art world - the viewer's experience of sculpture - is central in her work.
[Outline]
"Non-self"
The exhibition by Rosa Doornenbal
Date: March 26 (Sat) - 31 (Thurs) 12:00 - 19:00 *Open daily / Admission Free
Opening Reception: March 26 (Sat), 18:00 - 20:30 *19:00〜 Performance Lecture by the artist
Venue: Higure 17-15 cas / 3-17-15, Nishi Nippori, Arakawa, Tokyo [Google Map]
Organizer: Arts Initiative Tokyo, with support from The Mondriaan Fonds Foundation,
and with cooperation from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Tokyo.
[Rosa Doornenbal]
Doornenbal works in a variety of media creating detailed circumstances that reveal the interrelationship between viewer, object, equipment, tool and sculpture. With a critical and playful attitude she often treats the exhibition space, with its already formulated codes of behavior, as part of her work. In her most recent works the process of creation becomes a subject as she explores issues of craftsmanship and what artisthood could mean today. She obtained her BA of Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2013. She also has a background in Cultural Studies of which she obtained her BA at the University of Amsterdam in 2012.
Blog: "wabi-bijin"
>>> Japanese
"Karaoke at Le Moulin de la Galette"
The Revival of the Lost Exhibition by Thai Artivists curated by Atikom Mukdaprakorn
Photo by Atikom Mukdaprakorn (Reference image for the exhibition)
Date: February 12 (Fri) - 20 (Sat), 2016
Time: 11:00-19:00
Venue: AIT Room Daikanyama [MAP]
*Admission free / Closed on Sunday
Reception: 12 (Fri), 19:00 - 21:00 / Artist Talk from 19:30 -
AIT is pleased to host the exhibition, "Karaoke at Le Moulin de la Galette" The Revival of the Lost Exhibition by Thai Artivists curated by Atikom Mukdaprakorn.
The exhibition is held as a partnership event of The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2016. This year's main theme of the festival is "Garden in Movement", and runs from Feb 11 to 20 at several venues in Ebisu area.
>>> Website
>>> Japanese
"At the still point of the turning world..."
- a salon event curated by Gina Buenfeld (Camden Arts Centre, London)
Saturday 21st February, 2015
Time: 15:30 - 21:00 (Doors open at 15:00)
Venue: SHIBAURA HOUSE (Tokyo)
For this two-part salon event, curator-in-residence Gina Buenfeld (Camden Arts Centre,
London) will present a programme of live performance, screenings of artists' film, encounters
with sound and objects with open discussion in the incomparable setting of SHIBAURA
HOUSE, designed by Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. As a project that emerged from Buenfeld's
curatorial residency with AIT last year, and her ongoing research, "At the still point of the
turning world..." is a selection of works that proposes questions about sculptural and dynamic
form with a particular focus on dance and ceramics - two craft traditions with a strong
historical and contemporary presence in Japan. Drawing out the tensions between seemingly
inanimate objects and fugitive yet perpetually reiterated movement, the event proposes
questions about form and the varied ways in which its characteristics prevail as they are reexpressed
and re-created.
Divided into two acts whose atmospheres are inspired by Noh and Butoh, the event will feature
video works by international artists: Manon de Boer; Trisha Brown | Babette Mangolte; Jefford
Horrigan; Joachim Koester; Simon Martin; Ursula Mayer; Jeremy Millar; Fernanda Muñoz
Newsome and Ina Dokmo; Hiraki Sawa; Sriwhana Spong; a live performance by Mildred
Rambaud who will be in Japan especially for this event; and contributions from AIT artists-inresidence
Jesse Wine and Caroline Achaintre, who will be based in Tokyo for two months commencing in late January.
Summary
Title: "At the still point of the turning world..."
Date: Saturday 21st February, 2015
Time: 15:30 - 21:00 (Doors open at 15:00)
Venue: SHIBAURA HOUSE（Level 5, 3-15-4 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo）[Access]
Admission: Free (refreshments will be available for purchase)
Capacity: 50 people No reservations needed
Organisers: Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT] , Camden Arts Centre
Supported by: Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2014,
British Council, SHIBAURA HOUSE
Curator: Gina Buenfeld (Camden Arts Centre)
Time table
15:00 Doors open
15:30 - 17:00 Introductory presentations and discussion
- Intermission -
17:30 - 18:30 Act 01
Theme: Noh (screening)
- Intermission -
18:45 - 20:00 Act 02
Theme: Butoh (screening, live performance)
20:00 - 21:00 Open Discussion
Participating artists
Live Performance: Mildred Rambaud
Talk: Caroline Achaintre Jesse Wine
Screening:
1: Theme / Noh (45 min)
Hiraki Sawa
Jeremy Millar
Jefford Horrigan
Ursula Mayer
Manon de Boer
Joachim Koester
2: Theme / Butoh (45 min)
Mildred Rambaud
Simon Martin
Trisha Brown | Babette Mangolte
Fernanda Muñoz Newsome and Ina Dokmo
Sriwhana Spong
[Artist Profile]
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Mildred Rambaud
Mildred Rambaud is a London-based French artist whose practice encompasses a range
of media including sculpture performance and film to explore archetypal imagery, fragility
and the impossible. She has exhibited and performed at galerie Gabriel Rolt, the Place,
Oto, Shunt, Moot gallery, Point Ephémère, 54éme Salon de Montrouge, Wysing Art
Centre ... beyond others.
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Caroline Achaintre
Caroline Achaintre (FR, 1969). Born in France and raised in Germany, Achaintre trained
as a blacksmith before travelling to London with the prestigious DAAD scholarship to
study at Chelsea School of Art & Design and Goldsmiths College, London. Solo
exhibitions include the Present / Future Illy Prize at Castello di Rivoli, Turin, IT from
November 7 and currently at Tate Britain, London, UK until June 2015 as part of the BP
Contemporary Spotlight programme Her works belong to Museum collections that include
FRAC, Aquitaine, FR, Musée d'Art moderne de al Ville de Paris, FR and the Southampton
City Art Gallery, UK. The artist lives and works in London.
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Jesse Wine
Born in 1983, and now living and working in London. Jesse Wine gained his BA Fine Art
from Camberwell College of Art (2007), and his MA Fine Art at Royal College of Art
(2010). His work combines humour, biography and art history. While Wine's work is multidisciplinary,
he often describes himself as a ceramicist. His recent work, mostly using
clay, has an erudite take on the medium, using its history, its alliance with craft and its
placement within the visual arts. His works reveal a fascination with the medium and the
process of making, as well as underlining issues of form and display. Recent and
forthcoming solo shows include BALTIC Centre for Contemporary art, Gateshead, UK;
Galerie Hussenot, paris, FR; Mary Mary Gallery, Glasgow, UK; Oriel Mostyn Gallery,
Llandudno, UK (All 2014); BolteLang, Zurich, CH; Offspaceprojekt, Bernkastel, DE (all
2015); South London Gallery, London, UK; Limoncello, London, UK; Wysing Arts Centre,
Cambridge, UK (All 2014)
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[Curator Profile]
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Gina Buenfeld
(Exhibitions Organiser, Camden Arts Centre)
Gina Buenfeld has an MA in History of Art (20th Century) from Goldsmiths College (2004).
Following a period working with gallerist and leading art consultant Emily Tsingou, she
moved-on to be Programme Director at Alison Jacques Gallery, focusing on cultivating
relationships with artists and fostering commercial and curatorial context for their work. In
2009 she began working at Camden Arts Centre where she continues to work as
Exhibitions Organiser, realising ambitious exhibitions with international artists, including
João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Simon Starling, Jeremy Deller, Nathalie Djurberg and
the estates of seminal 20th Century artists Pino Pascali, Hanne Darboven and Dieter
Roth.
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>>> Japanese
The Backers Foundation and AIT residence programme vol. 7
"NEW WORKS BY ALBERT SAMRETH (USA) AND GOR SOUDAN (Kenya)"
Saturday, July 12 - Saturday, July 26 at YAMAMOTO GENDAI (Shirokane-Takanawa, Tokyo)
Opening Reception: 6pm - 8pm on Saturday, July 12
Left: "Continuity Drift" (2013). Natural pigment dyes /reference image. Right: Gor Soudan, Drawing in space (2014). Protest wire / reference image.
Press release Download（PDF / 889KB)
Exhibition flier Download（PDF / 5.4MB)
Artists interview Download（PDF / 2.3MB)
Interview by Ben Davis and Naoko Horiuchi
The exhibition will mark the 7th time that The Backers Foundation and AIT have partnered together, having previously hosted artists and curators from Africa, Asia, South America and the Middle East. As part of the joint residency programme, the exhibition will be accompanied by research, production and cultural exchange through educational sessions.
Albert Samreth (Born in 1987, Los Angeles, USA) is an emerging conceptual artist who has developed a studio practice based around engaging with natural and systematic processes. For this exhibition, Samreth will present a new series of paintings created by either the effects of Tokyo's heavy summer rainfall or made by the sunlight in a natural photographic process. The remainder of his work for the show will be derived from graphic scores related to his concurrent project for the International Moscow Biennale of Young Art, where he will be teaching songs to an African Grey Parrot.
Gor Soudan (Born in 1983, Kisumu, Kenya) is a self-taught conceptual artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. For this exhibition, Soudan will present pieces from his "Drawing in Space" series alongside linear drawings and an installation constructed in his Tokyo studio using a variety of locally-sourced, natural materials.
[ OUTLINE ]
Title: The BAR (The Backers Foundation and AIT Residence Programme) Vol. 7
"New works from Albert Samreth (USA) and Gor Soudan (Kenya)"
Date: Saturday, July 12 - Saturday July 26, 2014
Time: 11:00 - 19:00 *Admission free (Closed on Sunday, Monday and National holiday)
Venue: YAMAMOTO GENDAI（3F, 3-1-15, Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo）
Organized by: Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT]
Co-organized by: The Backers Foundation
Supported by: YAMAMOTO GENDAI / YOKUMOKU
Opening Reception: 6pm - 8pm on Saturday, July 12
Curated by:Naoko Horiuchi(AIT)
Related Event: Please check the AIT website for further information.
*The Associate Editor of Frieze Art Magazine, Christy Lange, joins the artists as a curator-in-residence.
＜Artist Biography＞
Albert Samreth (Born in 1987 in Los Angeles, USA)
Albert Samreth is an emerging conceptual artist who has developed a studio practice based around engaging with natural and systematic processes, and was recently featured in the Singapore Biennale 2013. His recent works include "Pacific Ocean Water Colors," a series of paintings created using the currents of the Pacific Ocean, and "The Voice," a five-channel audio installation commissioned for the Singapore Biennale 2013, where his poetry was narrated by Carolyn Hopkins, a voice actress whose announcements are used for the entire New York City subway system and most airports worldwide. For this exhibition, Samreth will present a new series of paintings created by either the effects of Tokyo's heavy summer rainfall or made by the sunlight in a natural photographic process. The remainder of his work for the show will be derived from graphic scores related to his concurrent project for the International Moscow Biennale of Young Art, where he will be teaching songs to an African Grey Parrot.
http://albertsamreth.com/
Read more...
Gor Soudan (Born in 1983 in Kisumu, Kenya)
Gor Soudan is a self-taught conceptual artist based in Nairobi, Kenya. With a background in sociology and philosophy, Soudan approaches issues relating to the rapid socio-political changes that Africa, and Kenya in particular, is currently undergoing. His ongoing series "Drawing in Space" comprises works made from protest wire - a tangled, black mass of wire salvaged from car tyres burnt during the civil unrest that accompanied the last elections in Kenya. Soudan more recently produced sculptural works from old bicycle brake cables that he gathered during his time in Freetown, Sierra Leone. For this exhibition, Soudan will present pieces from his "Drawing in Space" series alongside linear drawings and an installation constructed in his Tokyo studio using a variety of locally-sourced, natural materials.
www.gorsoudan.daportfolio.com
Read more...
What is The Backers Foundation?
Since 2007, the Backers Foundation, a private group of patrons from the business worlds, has supported ten emerging contemporary artists and five curators to visit Tokyo and stay for a three month residency. The non-profit organization AIT works with the Backers Foundation to organize and host the program. In 2012, a group exhibition bringing the ten previous residency artists was held at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.
Further Information
Press Enquiries
Ms. Sakai at YAMAMOTO GENDAI
Tel: 03-6383-0626 / i@yamamotogendai.org
Backers Foundation/Artist-in-Residence Enquiries
Naoko Horiuchi, Rika Yoda at Arts Initiative Tokyo
Tel: 03-5489-7277 / otoiawase@a-i-t.net
The Backers Foundation and AIT residence programme vol. 6
New works from Allegra Pacheco and Alberto Rodríguez Collía
Saturday, July 13 - Saturday, July 27, 2013 at YAMAMOTO GENDAI (Shirokane, Tokyo)
Left: Allegra Pacheco / Untitled / 2013
Right: Alberto Rodríguez Collía / No lugar (Non place) / 2013
Press release (Japanese) Download（PDF / 893KB)
The Backers Foundation and Arts Initiative Tokyo are delighted to announce the 6th Backers and AIT Residence (BAR) programme exhibition, "Divided Against Ourselves " which will be held between July 13th and 27th at YAMAMOTO GENDAI.
This year, emerging artists Allegra Pacheco (b.1986) and Alberto Rodríguez Collía (b.1985) will present works inspired by the experiences and discoveries of their three month residency in Tokyo, funded by the Backers Foundation.
Allegra Pacheco is a Costa Rican artist who works in a variety of mediums, with her work predominantly photographic, but often expanding into drawing and installation. In 2012, Pacheco exhibited her first installation work, 'Boobs', a series of breast-shaped soft sculptures made in collaboration with disenfranchised women from La Carpio, an immigrant neighborhood in Costa Rica. The exhibition space took on the innocence of a children's playground, but at the same time served as a platform whereby feminist issues and taboo subjects such as sexuality could be addressed in an un-biased environment. For this exhibition, Pacheco will produce an installation using both photography and illustration, and inspired by the architecture and density of Tokyo, where systems and rules unconsciously control the city's occupants and their lives. Her fantastical cityscapes are claustrophobic and lonely, where the post-apocalyptic undertones of a machine-ruled world invite the viewer to contemplate where our growth-focused lifestyles might lead our future generations.
In Japan for the first time, Guatemalan artist Alberto Rodríguez Collía uses archive's images (newspapers, television commercials, documentaries, video clips and the internet) to produce video works, drawings and collages. Collía presents images borrowed from mass media to criticize the unstable social and political situation in his country. For the 2008 project 'La Favorita', Collía gathered together with Erick Menchú, Guatemalan visual artist, images of folk sign designs from Guatemala, sharing the anonymous voices of the country. During his stay in Tokyo, he will produce engravings that combine semi-autobiographical situations from Guatemala and Tokyo, weaving together new stories.
The artists share certain similarities in that they use familiar motifs, presented at times in humorous ways, to portray the hidden and darker elements of our society. In recent years, as collectors increase, and the market expands, there is increasing interest in the South American art scene, but at the same time there is much to be learnt about creative expression and the socio-cultural situation.
Residency programs allow us to look through the artist's eyes, seeing not only the pleasant, but also the cultural differences and misunderstandings, in turn allowing us to view our society in a different manner.
Text: Naoko Horiuchi (AIT) Translation: Ben Davis
[ OUTLINE ]
Title: The BAR（The Backers Foundation and AIT residence programme）vol. 6
"Divided Against Ourselves"
New works from Allegra Pacheco and Alberto Rodríguez Collía
Date: Saturday, July 13 - Saturday, July 27, 2013
Venue: YAMAMOTO GENDAI（3F, 3-1-15, Shirokane, Minato-ku, Tokyo）TEL：03-6383-0626
Organized by: Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT]
Co-organized by: The Backers Foundation
Supported by: YAMAMOTO GENDAI / YOKUMOKU
Time: 11:00 - 19:00 (Closed on Sunday, Monday and National holiday) *Admission free
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 13 18:00 - 20:00
*Related Event: Talk by the two artists and Jimmy Ogonga (Residence Curator from Nairobi) at AIT.
Please check the AIT website for further information.
*YAMAMOTOGENDAI website: www.yamamotogendai.org/
*AIT Artists in residence Official Instagram : (@AIT_AIR)
Curator: Naoko Horiuchi (AIT)
＜Biography (Selected)＞
Allegra Pacheco（Born in 1986, Costa Rica, Lives and works in London）
・2011 BFA Photography, School of Visual Arts (New York)
・2013 *Currently obtaining a Masters in Fine Arts, Wimbledon College of Arts (London)
・2010 White Box/SCOPE Art fair (Miami)
・2010 New York Photo Festival, DUMBO BK (New York)
・2011 Tokyoscapes, Just Another Space (Tokyo)
・2012 BOOBS Galeria Des.Pacio (SJ Costa Rica)
・2013 Boobs in Japan, GALLERY MoMo (Tokyo) July 20 - Aug 10
Read more...
Left: Untitled, Mori Art Museum ( From the series of "Tokyo") / 2011 Right: Boobs / 2012 / mixed media (detail)
Untitled / 2013 / acrylic, ink on board
Alberto Rodríguez Collía（Born in 1985, Lives and works in Guatemala）
・Graduated in 2007 as engraver from Escuela de Arte 10 from Madrid
・2007 in august he co-founds the Taller Experimental de Gráfica, the 1st. workshop dedicated for engraving in Guatemala.
・2008 "Auction 08", Museum of Latin American Arts (California)
・2008 "Horror Vacui", Espacio CE! (Guatemala)
・2010 "Central American Biennial" (Nicaragua)
・2012 "Estampida", Des.Pacio gallery (San Jose, Costa Rica)
Read more...
From the series of "Weekend" / 2009 / scanned newspapers, frame
Left: Vegetation / 2013 / super 8 film transferred to digital video / 3' 07"
Right: No lugar (Non place) / 2013 / engraving on paper
From the series of "Weekend" / 2009 / scanned newspapers, frame
What is The Backers Foundation?
Since 2007, the Backers Foundation, a private group of patrons from the business worlds, has supported ten emerging contemporary artists and five curators to visit Tokyo and stay for a three month residency. The non-profit organization AIT works with the Backers Foundation to organize and host the program. In 2012, a group exhibition bringing the ten previous residency artists was held at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art.
Masumi Kawamura "Mirror Portraits"
An emerging photographer's works curated by graduates from AIT Curation Practice Course 2009
August 20, 2011 - August 31, 2011, 11:00-19:00, Closed on Sunday
Free admission
AIT room #B403 Twin Building, 30-8 Sarugaku-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo [MAP]
Opening Reception: August 20, 2011, 18:00-20:00 (Artist talk: 19:00)
"Mirror Portraits"/Type C Print/variable size/ 2011
This exhibition, curated by graduates from the Curation Practice Course at Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT), presents new artworks created by the emerging artist, Masumi Kawamura. Three curators, each working at different day jobs, incorporated their unique backgrounds and ideas into this exhibition. Guided by the single keyword "Daikanyama", where AIT is located, the curators created a unique exhibition.
Kawamura constantly explores memories and narratives in her photographs, and recently has become interested in people's relationships with architecture. In response to the keyword "Daikanyama", Kawamura focused on the Hillside Terrace development (by internationally renowned architect Fumihiko Maki), which has contributed to the unique urban culture of Daikanyama.
For the exhibition, Kawamura interviewed women currently living or working at Hillside Terrace about their mothers, and later shot video portraits. By having other women present the individual dialogue from the interview, personal memories are transformed into a universal story. As the stories intermingle with the viewer's individual experiences, various ambivalent feelings and memories will be evoked.
This exhibition aims to provide an opportunity to reflect upon one's background, whilst considering that of each of the featured women. In addition it will give an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between images, and between image and text.
The artist's work will be available for viewing at the opening reception on August 20.
[ Masumi Kawamura BIOGRAPHY ]
Candidate for MA in Fine Arts, Tokyo University of Arts
2004 - Group exhibition "27th Canon New Cosmos of Photography"
2006 - Solo exhibition "I know you go" Palanga, Lithuania
2006 - Group exhibition "New Visions of Japanese Photography"
Featured in a number of publications including Studio Voice - "Japanese Photographers 100" and "Women's Photographers Guide". http://www.masumikawamura.com
"missing" /Type C Print/variable size/2006/Reference image
"Mirror Portraits study" /Type C Print/variable size/2011/Reference image
＊Mirror Portraits" Planning Committee
The committee consists of three graduates from the MAD (Making Art Different) program run by Arts Initiative Tokyo, an independent art school organising lectures and symposiums, curating exhibitions, and managing artist residency programs in Tokyo. The committee was formed with the aim of creating an exhibition different to the conventional exhibitions usually enjoyed in museums.
Organizer：Mirror Portraits Planning Committee: Yukiko Goto, Lisa Morita, Sayaka Shinkai
Cooperation：Arts Initiative Tokyo
Press Contact：daikanyama.exhibition@gmail.com
