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October Issue 2006
Seven Carolina Institutions Present Site Installations by 10 Contemporary Japanese Artists
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston (Charleston, SC) in collaboration with the Van Every/Smith Galleries at Davidson College (Davidson, NC) are partnering with the College of Architecture at UNC-Charlotte (Charlotte, NC), Clemson Architecture Center-Charleston (Charleston), Winthrop University Galleries (Rock Hill, SC), McColl Center for Visual Art (Charlotte), and Sumter Gallery of Art (Sumter, SC) for an innovative exhibition entitled Force of Nature. This exhibition explores the relationship between humans and nature through the minds and hands of contemporary Japanese artists. Collectively, this exhibition poses the question - are we a part of, or apart from nature?
Part one of this collaborative exhibition is scheduled for the fall of 2006 and includes ten artists from Japan who will be in residence with these institutions from Aug. 30 through Oct. 15, 2006. The participating artists come from all over Japan and include Junko Ishiro, Yamamoto Motoi, Aiko Miyanaga, Yuri Shibata, Ayako Aramaki, Akira Higashi, Yumiko Yamazaki, Rikuo Ueda, Takasumi Abe, and Noriko Ambe.
Each artist will address the theme utilizing locally available natural materials (salt, wood, dirt, plant life, etc.) or natural elements and processes (wind, fire, water, decay, evaporation, erosion, etc.) in a temporary installation. The artists will depart for Japan in mid-October, but their installations will remain on view in situ through mid-Dec. 2006.
Part two of the project will be a capstone exhibition at Sumter Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, from late April through late June 2007. Overall, this exhibition will provide an opportunity for the public to see the entire scope of the project in one location. Each artist will be represented by a portrait, biography, artist statement, process photographs, and final installation photographs. Additionally, preparatory drawings, sketches, maquettes or other "residue" from their installations will be exhibited in conjunction with the documentary photographs.
This exhibition, co-curated by Mark Sloan (College of Charleston) and Brad Thomas (Davidson College), is intended to provoke a dialogue and discussion with members of each host community while bringing the work of these young artists to the attention of audiences who would have few opportunities to view contemporary Japanese art.
The participating exhibitions include:
Halsey Gallery, Halsey Institute of Contemporary
Art at the College of Charleston, Oct. 7 through Dec. 8, 2006,
Force of Nature - Noriko Ambe & Junko Ishiro.
Noriko Ambe (First Floor Halsey Gallery). Best known for her works
involving meticulously cutting and layering hundreds of pieces
of white paper, Ambe creates haunting, sculptural landscapes that
evoke a subtle feeling of loss and detachment. These complex series
of geological depressions provide a field upon which the viewer
may consider his or her own psychological terrain and its relation
to the natural world. Recently, Ambe has been exploring this concept
through indoor/outdoor installations that involve drawing on the
rings of a felled tree in the forest to collaborate with nature.
As an indoor installation, a photograph of the "ring drawing"
will be projected on the gallery wall where the artist with then
draw directly on the wall to create an interaction between past
and present. The rings of a tree, like the canyons in her previous
works, represent the pace of nature as being on a much longer
time-scale than that of a single human life. (To see works by
the artist visit www.norikoambe.ne.nu).
Junko Ishiro (Second Floor Halsey Gallery). Ishiro approaches painting with iconoclastic zeal. Her seemingly straightforward oil paintings are at once a document of what is and is not present in the landscape. To emphasize this point she has staged a number of performances whereby she sets fire to the painting in the very spot it was painted in the natural or urban landscape. Through this act of destruction Junko Ishiro creates a unique, four-sided dialogue between artist, subject, object and viewer. This exhibit is sponsored by Clemson Architecture Center - Charleston. (To see works by the artist visit www.geocities.jp/aidayodomi).
Sanders Rotunda, Addelstone Library, College of Charleston, Oct. 7 through Dec. 8, 2006, Force of Nature - Motoi Yamamoto. Following the death of his sister at the age of 24, Yamamoto adopted salt as his primary medium. In Japanese culture salt is not only a necessary element to sustain human life, but it is also a symbol of purification. He uses salt in loose form to create intricate labyrinth patterns on the gallery floor or in baked brick form to construct large interior structures. As with the labyrinths and innavigable passageways, Yamamoto views his installations as exercises which are at once futile yet necessary to his healing. (To see works by the artist visit www.motoi.biz).
William H. Van Every Gallery, Edward M. Smith Gallery, and Alvarez College Union, Davidson College, Through Dec. 6, 2006, Force of Nature - Yuri Shibata, Takasumi Abe, & Motoi Yamamoto.
Yuri Shibata (William H. Van Every Gallery). Shibata immerses herself in the ephemera of her surroundings. A number of performance-related projects have led her to examine various environs and filter that experience through tangible works of art that convey a more accessible and potent message to the viewer. This concept is best exemplified in a series of prints made from daily collections of dust from museum galleries. She has also ground pigments and prepared paints from natural materials such as cherry blossoms and her own hair. This paint was then used to produce an image of the object that was destroyed to make the paint.
Takasumi Abe (Edward M. Smith Gallery). Sculptor and sound artist Abe utilizes the sounds that occur in both nature and inside the body to comment on the indelible link of inner and outer worlds. He was initially intrigued with the seemingly inaudible sound of clouds that prompted him to construct a large receiver and transmitter from welded steel rods and tissue. The ambient document that was recorded sought to verify his curious nature.
Motoi Yamamoto (Edward M. Smith Gallery and Alvarez College Union). This artist will create salt installations at both Davidson College and College of Charleston. (See Halsey Institute).
Storrs Architecture Gallery, College of Architecture at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte, Oct. 13 - 30, 2006, Force of Nature - Akira Higashi.
Akira Higashi (Storrs Architecture Gallery). Higashi utilizes traditional construction materials such as mud, straw, and wood to create vernacular enclosures that are based on the dimensions of the human body. Viewers are invited to enter the works and experience the company of one another in isolation from the outside. The "communication machines" filter out the din of modern society and allow us to appreciate and focus on one another.
Campus Lawns, College of Architecture at the
University of North Carolina - Charlotte, Through Oct. 30, 2006,
Force of Nature - Ayako Aramaki.
Ayako Aramaki (Campus Lawns). Aramaki lives and works in an urban
environment, yet she longs for the simplistic attraction of wilderness
and countryside. As a way of merging these two disparate worlds,
she addresses the function of undeveloped plots of land in the
context of the modern city. Unkempt properties are cleared of
overgrown weeds, vines, and brush. The clippings are collected
and assembled into structures that relate to both the original
site and its context within the natural landscape. The forms that
dot the freshly cleared lot question the concept of development
and our insistence on interfering with the natural order. (To
see works by the artist visit www.age.ne.jp/x/aramaki).
Winthrop University Galleries, Rutledge Gallery & Elizabeth Dunlap Patrick Gallery, Winthrop University, Oct. 13 through Nov. 16, 2006, Force of Nature - Rikuo Ueda and Yumiko Yamazaki.
Rikuo Ueda (Rutledge and Patrick Galleries). Ueda sets in motion elaborately engineered mechanical devices that are designed to harness the wind to create what he calls "wind drawings". A writing instrument mounted on a flexible arm records subtle and dramatic variations in the wind by transferring the energy onto paper, canvas, or another surface. These machines are generally constructed of natural materials such as bamboo and hemp rope, yet the structures themselves are quite beautiful and sophisticated in design. (To see works by artist visit www.geocities.jp/rikuo38/).
Yumiko Yamazaki (Rutledge and Patrick Galleries). Yamazaki uses the elements that compose nature, along with the passage of time, to create art that serves as a metaphor for the experience of nature. In order to create this metaphor, she uses circular copper plates placed on or in the ground. When the plates are entirely covered, both the front and back surfaces record the interaction of the living soil, plant life, and insects underneath the earth. The artist will make a documentary of the changing of the surface of the copper-disks with photos which will be posted on the website. Then, after one month, the artist will unearth the copper and use the copper discs as printing plates for a series of large-scale prints. (To see works by the artist visit www6.plala.or.jp/yumiko_y/index_e.html).
McColl Center for Visual Art, Artist Studio, Oct. 11 through Nov. 18, 2006, Force of Nature - Aiko Miyanaga.
Aiko Miyanaga (Installation in Artist's Studio). Naphthalene is a synthetic material most commonly found in mothballs, which are used to repel moths from household closets. Miyanaga creates molds of things such as shoes, shirts, dresses, and butterflies and casts them in naphthalene. The delicate, aromatic objects are identified with a handmade label and placed in vitrines. Over the course of the exhibition the objects slowly evaporate from exposure to the air. The naphthalene collects on the inside of the vitrine forming crystalline shapes that signify the ephemeral nature of all things.
For more information about the project, artists, and host institutions, check our NC and SC Institutional Gallery listings or visit (www.halsey.cofc.edu/fon.html).
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