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29/10/2003

Shizuka Yokomizo

Cohan and Leslie, New York

FOREVER (AND AGAIN)

Originally debuted in this past Summer's 50th Venice Biennale (in 'Clandestines,' curated by Francesco Bonami), Forever (and Again) is a two-screen projection juxtaposing 4 elderly women playing the same Chopin Waltz on their pianos, with static scenes of their home environments.

'The music is a concrete marking of time, it gives tangible form to that which is constantly moving through us, just as old age is an accumulation of traces of time on our body. These elderly female pianists provide meaning and beauty to what they are constantly losing, and provoke thoughts and question about eternity. I also see these lonely performances juxtaposed with static images of the players environments as a way to give a sense of solitude, which I see as a fundamental condition of our being' (Shizuka Yokomizo).

A sense of solitude is also tangible in a series of 6 new portrait photographs titled Hitorigoto, an untranslatable Japanese word that describes the experience of inner thought and dialogue. These intimate portraits have been made in collaboration with the subject, after they are lost in thought, drawn within themselves, momentarily unaware of the artist's presence. The photographs are made with a single, given light source unique to the setting - an open fridge, a lamp, a window. Three final works complete a theme of solitude: rephotographed pages of personal advertisements - private longings publicly advertised.

These new works continue the themes of anonymity and solitude first explored in Shizuka Yokomizo's Stranger photographs exhibited here 2 years ago, for which she photographed total strangers through their windows, after arranging an appointment with them by an anonymous letter. These Stranger photographs are currently on view in the International Center for Photography's 'Stranger: The First ICP Triennial of Photography and Video' exhibition. Yokomizo has also been included in 'Days Like These: 2003 Tate Triennial;' and 'The Furtive Gaze,' at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. In 2002 the artist was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the Museo d'arte contemporanea in Rome, a fully illustrated catalogue accompanied the exhibition.

Concurrently on view in the project room will be the New York debut exhibition of paintings by British artist Christopher Orr, a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art in London. Orr's small oil paintings on panel explore the mysterious and precarious relationship between man and nature, as well as the oddities of suburban ritual. His figures are quietly situated in dream landscapes where scale is skewed and the overall atmosphere seems to be informed by memory, rather than reality.

Cohan and Leslie
138 Tenth Avenue
New York, New York 10011
212.206.8710 Tel
212.206.8711 Fax

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