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24/3/2005

Diverse Ways of Happiness

Spiral Garden (Spiral 1F), Tokyo

The Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition announced the details regarding the works to be shown as part of the Art Program, a display of new works created by artists from around the world at various sites within EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan’s Nagakute Area.

The theme of the Art Program is “DIVERSE WAYS OF HAPPINESS.” What kind of a form does happiness take in the age that we live in faced by many difficult issues? The aim of the Art Program is to have young and upcoming artists active around the world give a free and subjective response to this question through art.

Seven artists from Japan and abroad, who were selected by the Art Program curators with the assistance of international organizations and cultural agencies around the globe, will be exhibiting their works as part of this program. All of the artists were born in or since 1970, the year in which the Japan World Exposition Expo’70 was held in Osaka. The artists, who grew up during a period when existing values and ethics swayed greatly, will make an artistic expression of “happiness” as seen through their eyes, and their seven large-scale works will be installed outdoors with the presence of each artist at the six Global Commons and Hotei-Pond in the Japan Zone.

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Adjacent to EXPO Plaza in the Central Zone, the heart of the EXPO grounds, and nearest to the North Gate is Global Common 1, home to the West, Central and East Asia pavilions and Risa Sato's player alien.

Composed of multiple elements, this highly expressive character is at once adorable, unique and fun looking yet somehow a touch lonely. By concept, only when one of the elements falls off in an isolated area of the EXPO ground, is the work "complete". Sato describes having reached this work in reflecting on the notion that "however flawed we may be, it's wonderful to be alive". To one degree or another, we all sense we have imperfections; we are ill-equipped aliens, each and everyone.
Knowing we're not perfect, we are haunted by the quest for "perfection" as we pursue our individual journeys. The missing element of player alien symbolizes that human quest; the piece calls for a new approach to the search for self.

Risa Sato
1972 Born in Tokyo 1999 M.F.A., Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
Noted for her unique communicative approaches, she has performed various incarnations of her Risa Campaign series in various locales in Japan and abroad. Her work appeared in the Phillip Morris Art Award Final Selection exhibition (Tokyo International Forum, 1998) and received grand prizes at URBANART #7 (Parco Tokyo, 1998) and the Phillip Morris Art Award (Garden Hall, Tokyo, 2000).

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With a pond at its center and surrounded by woods Global Common 2 (The Americas) reflects the natural beauty of the EXPO setting. It is by this pond that Kohei Nawa has sited his PixCell−Sacred Beast.

Nawa roots his work in the dubiousness of human sensibility as it relates to the materials we normally "see" and "feel" (physically and intuitively). What people perceive is highly influenced by the forms and colors they see with their eyes and their tactile sensibilities, so just where essence lies is extremely ambiguous. In his ongoing PixCell series, the artist covers fruit, stuffed animals and other everyday, ordinary objects in small glass beads. Even if we know what lies inside, wrapped in glass beads, the image of an object suddenly transforms visually and tactilely. Through these of works, Nawa reflects upon the essence of all things around us. With the tiger and carp that man has revered as sacred since ancient times as the subject of this work, the artist gives form to the dialogue between man and the animal bearers of happiness ? invisible and intangible.

Kohei Nawa
1975 Born in Osaka
2003 D.F.A. in sculpture, Kyoto City University of Arts
Noted for his works clad in glass beads, prism boxes, glue and other translucent materials. In 1998, his Shonen to shinju (Boy and Sacred Beast) was awarded the class reunion encouragement prize at Kyoto City University of Arts student works exhibition and in 2003, he received the grand prize at Selected Artists in Kyoto and the encouragement prize at the Kirin Art Awards. He plans to relocate to America in 2005.

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Surrounded by the Global Loop and home to the European pavilions, Global Common 3 is accessible from several locations making it a natural gathering place for visitors.
Korean artist Han Zin-Su's concept of happiness captures the dual nature of society-based vs. individual values. The pursuit of socially gained wealth and status often neglects the individual, yet without regard for social well-being, individual happiness is ne'er achieved. Han creates a large-scale installation using the lighting fixtures of Common 3 that both symbolizes social structure and looks at the relation of happiness riding on the balance between individual and society.

Han covers both sides of the 20-meter light poles in 16-centimeter-tall paper dolls. Uniform in shape and size, the perfectly stacked, heaven-bound mass of dolls reflects the state of standardized society and expresses the difficulty of respecting individuals indistinguishable from the group. So where does happiness exist in today's complex society? Han's rather weighty work impels us to ponder that question.

Han Zin-Su
1975 Born in Korea
1999 M.F.A. in sculpture, Hongik University
Known for his installations composed of repeated pictographic human figures en masse. Through serial repetition of an extremely simple form readily understood by all, he attempts to express common human values, time, sentiment and more.

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The largest of the Global Commons, Global Common 4, like 3, is also home to European pavilions. With the EXPO Dome at its center the Common will be bustling with visitors. It is here that Ivana Falconi, also from Europe, sites her Guardian Angels, large-scale gnome-like figures patterned after the ceramic figurines Swiss families commonly display in their yards. In Europe, these magical creatures are regarded as bearers of good fortune and the guardian angels of nature. Through this work, the artist both introduces European culture and beckons the guardian spirits of happiness to the venue.

Visitors can enjoy Falconi's piece, sited on the plaza, as they relax over lunch or refreshments. The kitsch and humorous expression of her simple concept is sure to charm everyone.
This work epitomizes the artist's stance of transposing things tragic we face, such as war, religion and consumer society, into extremely concise fortuitous expressions.

Ivana Falconi
1970 Born in Locarno, Switzerland
Graduated Centro Scolastico per le Industrie Artistiche (Locarno) and Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan)
Known for her various installations addressing the problems of war, economic, interpersonal and other frictions.

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Best viewed from the elevated Global Loop, by which visitors circumnavigate the spacious Expo grounds, the facade of the joint African Pavilion forms the canvas for Tomoko Sawada's work. Known for her self-portrait photographic series in which she transforms herself into myriad contemporary Japanese woman ? at times tanning and smearing her face with thick white makeup like a powerful kogaru teenage girl; at other times posing as women of widely varied ages and occupations in omiai (matchmaking)-style photographs ? for FACE she assumes the guise of 12 different ethnicities in giant portraits that play off one of EXPO 2005 AICHI JAPAN's primary objectives: to deepen understanding of the world we, people of divers languages and ethnicities, co-inhabit.
The artist wishes to share the joy of being born into this globalized world as a member of the human race, and for a peaceful world in which individuals love one another as human beings. By expressing herself as of different ethnicities, she asks viewers to explore the fundamental meaning of existence.

Tomoko Sawada
1977 Born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan
2000 BFA Seian University of Art and Design
2001 Completed graduate research at Seian
Through her various guises in works such as ID400, a series of 400 self-portraits taken in photo booths, and Omiai, referencing the Japanese custom of matchmaking photographs, Sawada expresses herself and her times with a humor that asks viewers to examine the ambiguous relation between outward appearance and inner reality. In 2000, she was awarded a Special Prize at the Canon New Cosmos of Photography exhibition and in 2004, the 29th Kimura Ihei Memorial Photography Award as well as the New York International Center of Photography Infinity Award in the category of Young Photographer.

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Along side the Japanese Pavilion Nagakute runs a bridge that spans the center of the Global Loop; it also overlooks a pond. On a grassy thicket at the edge of that pond, Finnish artist Tea Makipaa sites her work: a 3-meter high, 8-meter long graphic image that imitates a folding-screen painting. In this work ? visible from the Global Loop, the bridge and several other locations ? the artist pursues a state of happiness.

Makipaa describes having the basics for living ? sufficient food, sleep, and a non-threatening environment ? as the gateway to happiness. As ordinary as those conditions may seem, arriving at that gateway in the rapidly changing environment we live in today is actually a difficult task. Yet only when those conditions are met, do people seek the company of others and congregate, examine themselves, or take next steps. Makipaa's photographic work World of Plenty depicts a savage world full of unusual animals, creating a rendition of nature replete with a love that human powers will never surpass.

Tea Makipaa
1973 Born in Finland
1998 Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki 1999 Royal Art Academy in Stockholm 2003 MFA, Royal College of Art, London
Resides in Germany
She expresses her critical viewpoint of our every day society through various forms of artwork.

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World MapHome to the pavilions of Oceania and Southeast Asia, Global Common 6 is the one venue that brings visitors in direct contact with water ? at the pond. It is on the floor of this pond that Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero sites his bright yellow and blue World Map. All the more meaningful for an island country like Japan, hosting of the EXPO, the work addresses "the relationship between "water and countries".

While water is valued as a source of life or as indispensable to commerce and transport, it can also create boundaries between countries and (particularly for island countries) cause isolation. Aiming to eliminate all such boundaries, Herrero's map changes the size, shape and location of countries, much like a puzzle, expressing a free exchange of culture. The pond becomes a playground in which visitors, tramping splish-splash through the water, travel freely across national borders. Here painting, generally regarded as an object for viewing, takes on a new function, as people interact with it.

Federico Herrero
1978 Born in San Jose, Costa Rica
1996-2001 Studied architecture at Universidad Veritas, San Jose; painting at Pratt Institute, New York; and education at the Universidad Hispanoamericana, Heredia. Making full use of his background in architecture, painting and education, he considers the relationship between viewer/user of the space and painting in creating project-specific works. He exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2001. He has been an artist-in-residence in Tokyo in 2004.

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Co-organized by:Japan Association for the 2005 World Exposition、Wacoal Art Center
Sponsored by: KIRIN BREWERY COMPANY,LIMITED ,HONKA JAPAN INC.
Supported by: Korean Cultural Center Korean Embassy in Japan, Embassy of Costa Rica, Embassy of Switzerland, Embassy of Finland, The Finnish Institute in Japan,
Subsidized by: FRAME(Finnish Fund for Art Exchange)、PRO HELVETIA, Art Council of Switzerland
Cooperated by: Vinyl Environmental Council(VEC), SHINGPOOSHA, Wacoal Corp.
Planned by: SPIRAL
Production support by: NANJO and ASSOCIATES

Image: Tomoko Sawada

Spiral Garden (Spiral 1F)
5-6-23, Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo,
Opening hours: 11：00-20：00 （daily）
Admission: Free

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