68 min 30
This artwork was part of a group of projects presented in the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. These videos show several participants from different backgrounds gathering to create and object or an action. For this video, he brought together five Japanese poets from different movements and styles. It is very clear and more perceptible in this project than in others of the series (amongst which hairdressers in San Francisco and potters in China are brought together), that it is difficult to leave space to the others. Considered for a long time as the symbol of ultimate creation, the composition of a poem is an extremely personal activity. Japanese society is often seen as very individualistic. Here, Tanaka presents us with the utopia of a micro community, which could be the plinth to the creation of a larger community. Documenting the production process is also a rebellious act against the result or the object itself. Incidentally, the installation is also composed of four drawing-poems, all different, without one ideal or perfect result.
Koki Tanaka is part of a generation of Japanese artists whose work responded to the economic recession and limited opportunities that beset their country in the early 2000s. Instead of creating monuments, these artists focused on everyday life, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary by stimulating moments of perceptual awakening. Their social critique was enacted through the spectacular and unexpected combination of materials, humor, and simple actions. Working primarily with found objects and video, Tanaka’s practice reveals hidden links between object and action.
Walking Through is one of a series of videos—sometimes humorous, often absurd—that record the artist’s performative interactions with objects in a particular site...
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Mario Garcia Torres films a game of Charades among professional actors guessing the former North Korean dictator’s favorite Hollywood films...
Untitled is a work on paper by Martin Kippenberger comprised of several seemingly disparate elements: cut-out images of a group of dancers, a japanese ceramic vase, and a pair of legs, are all combined with gestural, hand-drawn traces and additional elements such as a candy wrapper from a hotel in Monte Carlo and a statistical form from a federal government office in Wiesbaden, Germany...
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This work includes sketches for Extrastellar Evaluations , the project she produced at Kadist...
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Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...
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The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...