Emerging Artist Series 02:
Motoyuki Shitamichi
Mamoru Okuno
Tuan Mami

 

NOWHERE

29 October – 20 November 2011

 

The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam proudly presents an art exhibition “NOWHERE” by three emerging artists: Motoyuki Shitamichi, Mamoru Okuno and Tuan Mami from 29 October – 20 November 2011 in Hanoi.

 

This exhibition is a part of the project entitled “Emerging Artist Series,” in which we aim to introduce young promising artists to broader audience in Vietnam, as well as to provide an opportunity for the artists to explore further development of their creativities.

 

The said three artists met each other at Tokyo Wonder Site through the artist-in-residence program in Tokyo (JENESYS Creator Invitation Program for Tuan Mami). As their dialogues and discussions grew, they became interested in each other’s view and concept, and gradually felt the commonality in their artworks.

 

This exhibition is their first attempt, after finding congenial spirits in each other in Tokyo, to create new artworks through their observations and researches in Hanoi. Shitamichi and Mamoru stayed for a month in Hanoi for this project.

 

The conceptual message from the artists for this exhibition says,

 

“We pass by without knowing it, and yet, there it is.”

 

Shitamichi will visualize unseen memories and values in ordinary landscapes through simple materials and images, while Mamoru will help you to enhance your imagination through ordinary sounds and voices. Mami will also inspire you to think about the social relationships of human beings through his performance and photographs.

 

The exhibition starts at 6pm on Friday 28 October with the opening performance by Tuan Mami and runs until Sunday 20 November at the Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam (27 Quang Trung, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi). The artist talk will be also held from 7pm on Friday 4 November at Nhasan Studio (462 Duong Buoi, Ba Dinh, Hanoi). We do hope that the viewers will enjoy their artistic viewpoints of the world, which is demonstrated by the exhibition’s title, No-where, Now-here.

 

 

 

 

Selected Artworks

 

Remarks:

For the usage of the following images for your media, please contact the staffs in charge bellow. We will provide a bigger size of each image upon your request.

 

2011 Photo copy 51.5 cm x 72.8 cm””]

 

 

 

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About the artists

 

■ Motoyuki Shitamichi
Born in 1978, works and lives in Tokyo, Japan
BA in Fine Art (Oil Painting), Musashino Art University, Japan

 

After his graduation, he researched and travelled all over Japan, and he photographed a series of landscapes which features abandoned buildings of war. The original functions of these remains were lost 60 years after the war, and people have customized the buildings and facilities into houses, flower gardens, and zoo etc. The works are published as a photography collection, Bunkers, published by Little more in 2005. The other projects include “Sunday Painter” (2005 – 2010), in which he visited the people who possessed paintings his grandfather had drawn as a hobby, and “A Concealed Landscape” (2010 at the National Museum of Art, Osaka), in which he conducted a workshop to draw a map with letters, discovering tiny and small landmarks at street corners. His visualization of unseen memories and values in rapidly changing landscapes through research and fieldwork probably has its roots in his childhood dream to be an archeologist.

 

His works were exhibited in various places such as “Bunkers” (2005/ Inax Gallery, Tokyo), “Fatomes” (2008/ Espase Japon, Paris), “Torii” (2008/Puffin Room, NY), “Sunday Painter” (2010/ Contemporary, Art Center, Art Tower Mito), “Dusk/Dawn” (2011/Nap Gallery, Tokyo). Artist-in-residence programs in: Cite International des Arts (2007-2008/ Paris), Tokyo wonder site Aoyama (2010-2011/Tokyo), Aomori Contemporary Art Center (2011-2012/ Aomori)

 

Artist’s note
[connection]
Things that are put on streets to cross the gaps. A wooden chip or a stone turns into something like a “bridge” when it is put there. I fancy that, in Hanoi, the people return home by bike, crossing over something like the “bridge.”

 

We live with a receptiveness to the rapidly changing and growing cities and landscapes. I think these “bridges” are the smallest unit of necessary things and one of the smallest deeds in such landscapes at hand.
While historically and worldly precious treasures are exhibited in museums, traces of the ordinary life in our neighborhood are lined up in my exhibition. A photographer – I visualize this existing world once again in my framework. I believe that it is a deed which produces a look at unknown, non-monumental street corners. This is how I want to relate myself to this world directly.

 

■ Mamoru Okuno
Born in 1977, works and lives in Osaka, Japan
BA in Fine Art (music performance), the City College of The City University of New York, the USA

 

After several years of performing improvised music, first on piano, and later using self-made-instruments and electronics in Japan and overseas, he started working on a series of works “etude for everyday life” since 2007.

 

The word “etude” generally refers to a type of musical composition for practicing/demonstrating certain ability on musical instruments. However, his “etude for everyday life” is not written for any musical instruments, but for everyday objects such as plastic straws, food wrap, ice, steel hanger, instant noodle, electric kettle, microwave and everyday practices such as buying, eating, drinking, and cleaning. First, each etude is realized as a written instruction for people to make and listen to the sound by themselves, and often developed into several variations of performance, video, and installation works.

 

The “etude for everyday life” series has been exhibited and performed at MOCA Taipei (Taipei), Aomori Contemporary Art Center(Aomori), MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien/Vienna), SCHELTEMA (Leiden), La Chambre Blanche (Quebec), Diapason Gallery (New York City), Yuka Contemporary (Tokyo), B-312 (Montreal), and various other places. In 2010, he won the first prize at the TOKYO EXPERIMENTAL FESTIVAL organized by Tokyo Wonder Site.

 

Artist’s note

 

As I arrived at Hanoi, I started to take notes of the sound that I encountered. For example, when I was sitting at a cafe near by the Church one day, I heard people eating sunflower seeds. The little cracking sound, very often accompanied by the chatting of other people, gives unique rhythm to the continuous sound of the traffic. It has not become a work yet, but I always start from this kind of interests.

 

Also, visually speaking, I learn a lot from the way people operate their lives. The way the shop owners display their products on their shelves, or the way people hang their laundry, and how people cook and put dishes on the table and so on. You find their humor, sense of space, and surprising ideas.

 

As it is inspiring to see how people live, I hope my works would also enrich their perspectives of lives, and introduce some other way to use the most familiar objects by focusing attention on the sound they make.

 

■ Tuan Mami
Born in 1981, works and lives in Hanoi, Vietnam
BA in Fine Art, Vietnam University of Fine Arts, Vietnam

 

Other than working on oil paintings, he has devoted himself to many other experimental methods of expression and practices; installation art, video art, conceptual art, performance art, to name a few. His participations in international art events and exhibitions include: solo and group contemporary art events in Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi/Vietnam; Berlin-Munich/Germany; Vienna/Austria; Shanghai/China; Singapore; Yangon/Myanmar; London/England; an artist-in-residence program in Casino Luxembourg; Organhaus, Chongqing; 934-Artspace, Kunming/China; Hooyong art center/S.Korea; Tokyo Wonder Site in Tokyo/Japan.

 

He is concerned with a deep understanding about the substance of a human being’s existence. Therefore, he has a strong desire to examine himself, as well as the complicated connection between individual and society through making artworks. According to him, making artwork is so often similar to two sides of the same coin; on one hand he can represent his reaction, which often is a criticism to the present ordinary state of society he has in mind, on the other hand, his personal suggestion to change that situation. His works are also the mixture of imagination and the truth of deep thought, like the borderline between reality and dream.

 

Artist’s note

 

Art is like a game of conceptual transformation about awareness or existence in order to explain: What’s life? What is art? What’s artwork and artist? I myself consider doing art as the way you challenge your perception to work out and follow with the fast changes in life. I would like to challenge mine to see other sides of things and find the relation between life and art. For example, in the recent projects named “Celebration of our moment and love”, I leave much space for people to participate and create the central part of the work as if I am exchanging the role between the spectators and me as an artist. For “Celebration of our moment and love”, I’m trying to evoke the alternative senses in daily life that already is there. However, at the same time, they can be nowhere if no one considers them. I am talking about the fragility of life, ephemeral moments, the brokenness, and the disappearance of the relationships between man and man, between action and action, sense and sense…

 

For inquiries on the exhibition and the interview with the artists, please contact at:

 

Ms. Ha Nguyen (0168-741-6886)
Mr. Yoshioka (0123-384-4138)
The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam
27 Quang Trung, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam
TEL 04-3944-7419 www.jpf.org.vn