Hikari (Light) (2015) depicts a fantastical and wrenching story about Juneko, a terminally ill young woman who communicates with her lover, a painter, through a portrait of her produced shortly after her death. As Juneko becomes sicker, her hair begins to fall out, a symptom of her unnamed illness. As her condition deteriorates, the film toggles back and forth with the animated story of Mogeji, a white strand of hair inhabiting Juneko’s body who becomes anthropomorphized through Kondo’s animation and recounts his own story of mortality and loss. Although its love story is unabashedly sentimental, Hikari (Light) also responds to the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and the national trauma it subsequently triggered. Reframed in this context, Juneko’s illness draws more unsettling allusions to the radiation poisoning experience by citizens living near nuclear reactors damaged during the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Throughout, the animated interludes function as their own counter narrative depicting that, despite its elements of the fantastic, metaphorically depicts a body in crisis. Hauntingly complex, Hiraki (Light) offers a powerful meditation on loss, disease, and the inexorable necessity for hope amidst trauma.
Aki Kondo utilizes animation, video, and mixed media to explore such varied topics as intimacy, loss, and the human body. Her work crosses multiple practices and frequently investigates the creative process as an object of study in and of itself, exploring how artistic mediums can communicate emotionally complicated narrative through expressive and resonant images. Her animation work is especially unconventional, and while her characters often appear fantastical, they invariably tell far more serious stories than their cartoonish form would suggest.
“We both died at the same moment” is a humorous observation of anthropomorphism, the attribution of human emotions to nature and animals...
The flat, wide river holds on its surface a tour-boat of memories, as Som Supaparinya documents her Grandfather’s return via cruise to familiar territories in rural Thailand that were submerged after the Thai government installed a series of dams...
Matthieu Laurette — Une rétrospective dérivée (1993-2023) — MAC VAL Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Matthieu Laurette — Une rétrospective dérivée (1993-2023) — MAC VAL Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Matthieu Laurette — Une rétrospective dérivée (1993-2023) Exposition Techniques mixtes Matthieu Laurette, Self-Portrait, 2014/2023...
Screening at 7pm at The Roxie In connection to his exhibition, Evidence of Things Not Seen at KADIST , photo-conceptual artist, Hank Willis Thomas selected these films as a homage to innovative and influential creators in the medium of film whose work supports social justice as well as explores contemporary notions of identity, race, history and a national legacy of resistance...
Rojas’s two pieces in the Kadist Collection— Untitled (four-legged…) and Untitled (Bird’s Eyes) —are representative of her pictorial style which uses bold colorful blocks of paint and female and animal characters...
On September 22, 1940 the French signed an accord, which granted Japanese troops the right to occupy Indochina...
The Simpson Verdict is a three-minute animation by Kota Ezawa that portrays the reading of the verdict during the OJ Simpson trial, known as the “most publicized” criminal trial in history...