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14/2/2014

Three exhibitions

Museum of Contemporary Art MOT, Tokyo

The Marvelous Real
Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Art from The MUSAC Collection

Curated by:
Yuko Hasegawa (Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
Kristine Guzmán (General Coordinator, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León)
Hikari Odaka (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)

To commemorate 400 years since the Keicho diplomatic mission from Japan to Spain, a wide-ranging program of events is being held in 2013 and 2014 under the banner of celebrating the "400th Anniversary of Japan-Spain Relations." As part of this program, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) are presenting "The Marvelous Real," an exhibition featuring the works of 27 artists selected from the collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), which focuses on Spanish works from the 1990s to the present day.

Realism has featured in Spanish art since the 17th Century through exponents such as Velázquez and Goya, and this tradition can be seen in the Madrid Realism movement of the 1980's, as represented by the work of Antonio López García. The "real" of Spanish art does not refer to technique in which the subject is replicated in fine detail, but derives from the obsession amongst Spanish artists to depict what they see as the "real." This obsession stems from a desire to grasp even the surreal and the fantastical in the same way that we touch and grasp the familiar objects of our everyday lives--dragging them down to earth and engaging in a dialogue. The result can often be a vivid exaggeration (esperpento) of everyday scenes or things, and arguably this is generated from the unique and highly charged relationship between life and death. The poet Federico García Lorca wrote that "In Spain the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world," and indeed, death is more vibrant than life. The works in this exhibition convey, through realism, the heaviness of life that is underpinned by an activated death. The works include those by Latin American artists, and this in itself reveals to us how the Spanish sensibility of "real" is transformed and developed in the astonishing idiosyncratic tropical culture of Central and South America.

This exhibition hints at where the "real"--the "real" that hasn't been picked up and incorporated into a globalized, networked world--resides, to suggest a way of being, "The Marvelous Real," where the "real" clearly reveals itself in the conflict between the excesses of life and the shadows of death.

Organized by
Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)

Supported by
Embassy of Spain in Japan

Granted by
Nomura Foundation

In cooperation with
NEC Display Solutions, Ltd.
Exhibition catalogue

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MOT Annual 2014
Fragments — Incomplete Beginnings

Artists: Shinya Aota, Akiko&Masako Takada, Paramodel, Naoyo Fukuda, Akira Miyanaga, Kana Yoshida

Curator: Chika Mori

The 'MOT Annual' series of group exhibitions has been held by the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, since 1999 in order to introduce new trends in contemporary art created by young Japanese artists. The 'MOT Annual 2014' is the 13th in this series and using the keyword 'fragments' it features 6 artists/groups who present new viewpoints from which to perceive reality. The word 'fragment' refers to minute piece or part of a whole and the artists in this exhibition all employ fragments, that have fallen away their surroundings, to create unique new worlds. Endlessly combining readymade plastic parts, carrying out minute work on playing cards or erasers, extracting images from familiar scenes and layering them over each other--these artists can be characterized by the way in which they employ a variety of different techniques, all of them consciously selecting their own particular fragments from the numerous options that exist around them, trying to redefine the world through contact with these.
By their very nature, 'fragments' are fundamentally incomplete and fragile; there is something missing from them and this excites the imaginations of the viewers, however, through the addition of the artists' touch, they also invite the viewer to travel from 'here' to some other place. Today, when people find themselves engulfed in a vortex of superfluous information that surpass their ability to grasp or perceive, perhaps the results of these artists' experiments will provide clues that will permit access to the world from a new point of view.

Organized by
Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

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MOT Collection
Part 1: Our Ninety Years: 1923-2013
Part 2: Chronicle 1966- | Expanded Vision

Part One (first floor) is entitled "Our 90 Years: 1923-2013." Through representative works in the museum's collection, we look at the creative endeavors of artists in the 90 years since the Great Kanto Earthquake and consider the territories they have explored in their works.

Part Two (third floor) presents "Chronicle," a series that casts light on the issues of post-war Japanese art in the context of specific periods. This time, in our fourth installment, we take "seeing" as a theme in focusing on the late 1960s, when the concepts of art and "art viewing" were rethought and expanded in scope. This period saw a succession of artworks using fluorescent paint or pulsating lights to powerfully stimulate the visual sense, works incorporating design and technology, and works that viewers themselves complete through their participation. Such works were not only visually captivating, they also prompted varying actions and gave viewers themselves a new sense of connection with art. Part Two looks closely at these developments of the late 1960s, which still now inform contemporary art trends, with the inclusion of newly acquired artworks in our collection.
As a special exhibit, we present Tomoko Shioyasu's work BIRTH in a gallery of our third floor exhibition space. This immense paper-cut tapestry, created especially for MOT, will draw visitors into a world of light and shadow.

Part1
On Kawara, Takeshiro Kanokogi, Noboru Omiya, Yutaka Bito, Shinjiro Okamoto, Yayoi Kusama, Koichi Kurita, Roy Lichtenstein...

Part2
Ushio Shinohara, Nobuaki Kojima, Tadanori Yokoo, Ay-O, Tomio Miki, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Masunobu Yoshimura...

Press contact:
T +81 (0)352451134 / F +81 (0)352451141 Kumiko Ohara k-ohara@mot-art.jp Reiko Noguchi r-noguchi@mot-art.jp Mihoko Nakajima m-nakajima@mot-art.jo

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku Tokyo 135-0022 Japan
Opening Hours
10:00-18:00, last admission to the gallery floor is at 17:30
Closed Mondays (except for May 5), May 7(Wed).
Admission:
Adult: ¥1,100
University & College Student, Over 65yrs old: ¥800
High School & Junior High School Student: ¥600
Free for Elementary School & Under

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