Tomoko Sawada “Sign”

Dates: March 2 – 31, 2013
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. +81-(0)3-6459-3205

The exhibition will feature Tomoko Swada’s new series, “Sign”. This was first exhibited at a group show Factory Direct in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, USA.
The series consists of 2 sets of 56-piece photographs of the Heinz Ketchup and Mustard. Remarkable these labels of “Tomato Ketchup” and “Yellow Mustard” have been translated into 56 languages of countries selling them. The abel and bottle are like a “face” that you can recognize the Heinz company. Here Heinz’s linguistic face was changed by Sawada.

In Sawada’s previous work, she used basic drugstore cosmetics and off-the-rack clothing to morpho into various age and ethnicity. She used similar basic tools to textually costume Heinz. Rather than using a professional translation service, Tomoko Sawada gathered the translations of “Tomato Ketchup” and “Yellow Mustard” through the internet search, and even her Facebook artist page to enlist her international friends and fans in the task.

Tomoko Sawada uses photography to explore the relationship between one’s inner life and outer image.  Her works borrow compositional devices from familiar photographic formats such as the school portrait, wedding and fashion photography, restaging them in a satirical mode so as to lay bare their various stereotypes and assumptions.  Predominantly casting herself in the role of model, Sawada has built an extraordinary cast of characters that present a humorous and incisive portrait of Japanese society.  Her works have been presented internationally and are in major public collections including Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, International Center of Photography, New York and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  Tomoko Sawada lives and works in Kobe, Japan and New York City.

Tomoko Sawada “SKIN”

Dates: January 12 – February 24, 2013
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. +81-(0)3-6459-3205

Artist talk: January 12, 18:00- at MEM,
Guest speaker: Kotaro Iizawa
*Japanese version only

Opening reception will be held at MEM after the talk.

Hiroshi Mizuta　“Traffic Jam”

Dates: November 24 – December 25, 2012
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. +81-(0)3-6459-3205

MO YI　“Caged Beast”

Dates: September 28 – October 28, 2012
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. +81-(0)3-6459-3205

Opening Reception: September 28, 19:00 –
The artist will attend the reception.

　Mo Yi is one of the artists who took city as main subject in the 1980s. He traversed Tianjin shooting people on street with a camera held on the back of his neck. The rapid urbanization process in China produced alienation and political and economic turbulence. The artist said he took these photos as the storm was brewing, and just before and after the storm broke.

　“These series record and symbolize both the collective state of the country and my mental state. Significant social events are related to me. It is only because of my sincerity and enthusiasm that I used photographic methods and languages correctly. Here, presenting society, other people, and emotions is equivalent to presenting myself; society completes the artwork.”

　 The exhibition focuses on early series in the 1980s such as My Illusory City and 1m-The scenery behind me.

Natsumi Hayashi　“Today’s Levitation”

Dates: June 16 – July 16, 2012 July 29, 2012 *exhibition has been extended.
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. +81-(0)3-6459-3205

Artist talk: June 16, 18:00 – at NADiff a/p/a/r/t, Guest speaker: Kotaro Iizawa
*Japanese version only

Natsumi Hayashi started her blog “yowayowa camera woman” on January 1, 2011 with a photograph of herself levitating. She titled the photo “Today’s Levitation” and kept uploading a new levitation self-portrait every day, turning it into a one-year project. There are no tricks: her self-portraits are shot a moment after she jumps in to the air, but the resulting image and her expression of nonchalance make it appear as though she actually is floating in mid-air.
Hayashi’s activities are centered on the Internet and include her blog, Twitter (10,900 followers and counting) and Facebook.
A couple months after its launch, her blog sparked a phenomenon of levitation photography in East Asia. Many people began posting their own levitation photos online in Taiwan and Mainland China. Quite a few Asian media introduced her as the “Tokyo Levitation Girl” in newspapers, TV and magazines.
It seems as though the younger generations of developing Asian countries, like China, regard her levitation photos as a symbol of the great leap taken by their society in its rapid progress from the old regime to the current highly developed capitalist system.
Hayashi receives many responses to her blog from all over the world including Asia, North/South America, Scandinavia, Russia and the Middle East.
Her self-portraits and comments were introduced not only in numerous blogs, but also in major media outlets such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Hayashi says that gravity symbolizes something that binds us. “Lots of people are under the influence of constant daily stress just like everybody is equally under the control of gravity. I hope the viewers can feel emancipation from the stress of daily life when they see my levitation photography.”
“Today’s Levitation” becomes a strong visual message when it’s updated every day through out the year. Hayashi is free in the moment she jumps at any given place on any given day. Her self-portrait is a declaration for releasing oneself from all the fetters of one’s life.

Chiyuki Sakagami “Scriptures from the Birds”

Dates: May 12 – June 10, 2012
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. 03-6459-3205

opening reception　May 12, 18:00-

　”Scriptures from the Birds” is a sequel to “Naturalis Historia” that she made with blue ink on paper last year.
Sakagami pays an homage to the birds, the creature she loves the most on the earth. There are more than 40 drawings at the show.

Yoshio Kitayama “Picture of living/dying”

Dates: March 17 – April 15, 2012
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. 03-6459-3205

MEM presents the solo exhibition Picture of living/dying by Yoshio Kitayama. The artist first started creating large-scale monochrome ink paintings on Japanese paper in 1997, which are categorized into two types: “Icon” and “Universe”. “Icon” ink paintings show enlarged human figures drawn from clay dolls the artist made himself. The resulting composition brims with layers of figures, and suggests not only the interplay among individuals in human history, but also between nations, races and societies. In the “Universe” series, the accumulation of the artist’s varied mark making in black ink creates a series of stunning depictions of the universe, which could be compared to the Mandala image in Buddhism. The ink paintings contain both the cosmos and—as Carl Jung commented on Mandalas— “a representation of the unconscious self.”

The central piece of the exhibition, History is written by the dead, presents a river of the dead streaming diagonally across the paper. In the right hand corner hundreds of figures disappear into the distance as they are blown from the river into the heavens. A group of the artist’s own ancestors stand at the edge of the frame where they witness the relentless cycling of life.

The picture that was taken down features a prominent Christ-like figure, though in Kitayama’s rendition he is female. The piece is a result of two stages of completion; Kitayama filled the background with a cascade of figures after he presented the Christ-figure in an empty field as a finished piece. Kitayama’s art practice often questions conventions in an artists’ process.

The exhibition’s title piece, Picture of living/dying, challenges the assumption that life and death are separate states of existence. Eroticism combines with faces of the living and dying multitudes in a transcendent celebration of the coexistence and simultaneous occurrence of life and death.
Kitayama’s painstaking and meticulous ink painting process underpin the monumental scale and power of his works. His expansive ink paintings invite the viewer to share, if but for a moment, a perspective broad enough to encompass the universe, the unknown and the entire scope and nature of human existence.

Yoshio Kitayama was born in 1948 in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. His sculptures and paintings have been presented internationally in many institutions and venues including the 40th Venezia Biennale, the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, the Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh and the Triennale India. He lives and works in Kyoto.

http://mem-inc.jp/2012/01/31/toshima120210_e/ http://mem-inc.jp/2012/01/31/toshima120210_e/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:31:09 +0000 admin http://mem-inc.jp/?p=2741 ]]>

• English
• Japanese

Maki Toshima “Meta.Morphos”

Dates: February 10 – 26, 2012
Venue: MEM map
open hours：12:00-20:00　closed on Mondays
tel. 03-6459-3205

Talk: Friday, February 10, 18:30-　Hide Nakaya × Maki Toshima
Venue: MEM
Free entry (30 person capacity)
*NADiff A/P/A/R/T Joint Opening 18:00-

]]> http://mem-inc.jp/2012/01/31/toshima120210_e/feed/ 0 http://mem-inc.jp/2011/11/23/111126_e-2/ http://mem-inc.jp/2011/11/23/111126_e-2/#comments Wed, 23 Nov 2011 03:30:19 +0000 admin http://mem-inc.jp/?p=2649 ]]>

• English
• Japanese

Ken Kitano “our face project: Asia”

November 26, 2011 – January 29, 2012
Open hours: 12:00 – 20:00  closed on Mondays
Winter holidays: December 26 – January 6


Features portraits from Ken Kitano’s “our face” series, taken in countries around the world and at work places, schools and places of worship. This time he will showcase those taken in Asia, including Japan. There will also be photographs from his series showing Mexican murals that he has been creating since 1997.

Opening reception: November 26, Sat. 18:00-
Talk: December 16, Fri. 18:30- at MEM
       Kaoru Kato (art critic) × Ken Kitano
       Admission free

Ken Kitano will also participate in a group exhibition at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography to exhibit 7 pieces of our face in large size.
Contemporary Japanese Photography vol.10 ‒ elan photographic –
Period：December 10 (Sat) – January 29 (Sun)
Venue：Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Yebisu Garden Place, 1-13-3 Mita Meguro-ku Tokyo)
Artists: KITANO Ken, SANO Yoichi , SOENO Kazuyuki, NISHINO Sohei, HARUKI Maiko

MEM
NADiff A/P/A/R/T 2F, 1-18-4, Ebisu, Shibuyaku, Tokyo 150-0013
Tel. 03-6459-3205

]]> http://mem-inc.jp/2011/11/23/111126_e-2/feed/ 0 http://mem-inc.jp/2011/10/04/20111008_exhibition_e/ http://mem-inc.jp/2011/10/04/20111008_exhibition_e/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:57:05 +0000 admin http://mem-inc.jp/?p=2608 ]]>

• English
• Japanese

Iwata Nakayama Portfolio 2010

October 8, Sat. – November 20, Sun
Open hours: 12:00 – 20:00  closed on Mondays

Iwata Nakayama (1895-1949) established the Lacan Studio in New York in the 1920s, and subsequently moved to Paris, where he developed close relationships with Leonard Foujita and a coterie of Futurist artists. Upon his return to Japan he moved to Ashiya, where he founded a camera club in 1930 that brought him much acclaim. Nakayama’s experiments with darkroom techniques using a variety of materials allowed him to create multi-layered images that left a lasting impact on the history of modern Japanese photography.
This exhibition commemorates the publication of a portfolio of Nakayama’s work that was produced using dry photographic plates.

Lecture by Ryuichi Kaneko: October 8, Sat. 17:00-18:00 at MEM
Opening reception: October 8, Sat. 18:00-

MEM
NADiff A/P/A/R/T 2F, 1-18-4, Ebisu, Shibuyaku, Tokyo 150-0013
Tel. 03-6459-3205

]]> http://mem-inc.jp/2011/10/04/20111008_exhibition_e/feed/ 0