MAM Project 018
PRESS RELEASE VOL.1
September 6, 2012
MAM PROJECT 018: YAMASHIRO CHIKAKO
NOVEMBER 17 (SAT), 2012 – MARCH 31 (SUN), 2013 GALLERY 1, MORI ART MUSEUM (53F, ROPPONGI HILLS MORI TOWER)
40 Years After Reversion
- Video Work Poetically Re-Examining Okinawa Today
MAM PROJECT IS A SERIES BY THE MORI ART MUSEUM TO
SUPPORT THE ACTIVITIES OF PROMISING YOUNG ARTISTS.
The Mori Art Museum is pleased to present “MAM Project 018: Yamashiro
Chikako” from Saturday, November 17, 2012 to Sunday, March 31, 2013.
Yamashiro Chikako (b. 1976 in Okinawa) uses a variety of media including
video and photography to produce works on the theme of her native Okinawa.
In her early video work I Like Okinawa Sweet (from OKINAWA TOURIST )
(2004), by devouring ice cream of an Okinawan famous brand in front of the
US military base, the artist portrays an Okinawa that continues to be “licked,”
while in her representative work Seaweed Woman (2008), by giving herself
up to the flow of water and weed in the sea off Henoko, planned site for
relocation of the US base, she hints at Okinawa’s subjugation to the demands
of Japan and the United States. Your voice came out through my throat
(2009), in which she endeavors to retell through her own mouth the stories
told by elderly Okinawans who experienced the bloody battle of annihilation
on Saipan, could be interpreted as symbolizing the difficulty of passing down
history now, almost 70 years after the war, but it also overlaps with Okinawa’s
problem of fading wartime memories.
Thus most of Yamashiro’s practice utilizes her own body, serving to
symbolize the situation of Okinawa. Still, her works cannot be neatly
categorized as simplistic arguments of good and evil; the lyrical quality of
her expression allows them to be interpreted in various ways, and in them
one finds universal themes such as femininity and physicality, the connection
between life and death, memory and storytelling. More recently Yamashiro
has begun to shift from performing in her own works to featuring third party
subjects. In this exhibition, she plans to unveil in her latest work on video, an
intersection of reality and fiction with a woman who runs a meat shop at a
black-market on the US base.
I Like Okinawa Sweet（from OKINAWA TOURIST）
2004
Video 7min. 30sec.
Courtesy: Yumiko Chiba Associates
Seaweed Woman
2008
Film (transferred to DVD) 7min. 15sec.
Courtesy: Yumiko Chiba Associates
Your voice came out through my throat
2009
Film (transferred to DVD) 7min.
Courtesy: Yumiko Chiba Associates
Organizer: Mori Art Museum
Curated by: Kondo Kenichi（Curator, Mori Art Museum）
press release
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Press Contact Details: Ms. Machino, Ms. Taki, Ms. Shinagawa, Ms. Kiriki
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum
Tel: 03-6406-6111 Fax: 03-6406-9351 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.mori.art.museum
MAM Project 018
PRESS RELEASE VOL.1
September 6, 2012
Venue: Gallery 1, Mori Art Museum 53F, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Open Hours: 10:00 –22:00 ｜ Tue: 10:00 –17:00 ｜ *1/1(Tue) Opens until 22:00 *Admission until 30 minutes before closing time.
Admission: Adult:￥1,500 University / Highschool student:￥1,000 / Child（4 years to Junior Highschool）:￥500
* All prices include tax. * Ticket also valid for “Aida Makoto: Monument for Nothing” and Tokyo City View observation deck (excludes Sky Deck).
Tel: 03-5777-8600 (Hello Dial) Website: WWW.MORI.ART.MUSEUM
Yamashiro Chikako (Contemporary artist, Video artist)
Photo: Takano Ryudai
Born 1976 in Okinawa, graduated from the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts in1999, and
thereafter studied at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, U.K. in 2000. Completed the Graduate
Course at the Environmental Design, Graduate School of Formative Arts, the Okinawa Prefectural
University of Arts in 2002.
Major exhibitions include solo shows “Woman at Graveyard” (WANAKIO 2002, Maejima Art Center,
Okinawa, 2002), “Garden Talk”（project space KANDADA, Tokyo, 2007), and such group shows as;
“Okinawa Prismed 1872-2008” (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2008), “Into the Atomic
Sunshine in Okinawa” (Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, 2009), “Yebisu International
Festival for Art & Alternative Visions: Searching Songs” (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography,
2010), “Art, Performance & Activism in Contemporary Japan”（Pump House Gallery, London, 2012),
and “Women In-Between: Asian Women Artists 1984-2012”（Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and others,
2012-13) .
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
■ ARTIST TALK
*Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation available
Speaker: Yamashiro Chikako
Date and Time: 14:00 − 15:30 Sunday, November 17, 2012
Venue: Mori Art Museum Capacity: 80 (bookings required) Admission: Free (exhibition ticket required)
Bookings: Mori Art Museum website WWW.MORI.ART.MUSEUM
■ CURATOrs dialogue * Japanese only
Speakers: Suzuki Katsuo (Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), Kondo Kenichi (Curator, Mori Art Museum)
Date and Time: 14:00 − 15:30 Saturday, January 12, 2013
Venue: Mori Art Museum Capacity: 80 (bookings required) Admission: Free (exhibition ticket required)
Bookings: Mori Art Museum website WWW.MORI.ART.MUSEUM
Press Images are available on our website:
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W W W. M O R I . A RT. M U S E U M
Press Contact Details: Ms. Machino, Ms. Taki, Ms. Shinagawa, Ms. Kiriki
Public Relations, Mori Art Museum
Tel: 03-6406-6111 Fax: 03-6406-9351 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.mori.art.museum