Untitled (Celestial Motors)

2012 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

6:38 minutes

Maria Taniguchi


Untitled (Celestial Motors) is a visual meditation on an icon of modern urban Philippine life—the jeepney. This ubiquitous form of public transportation, originally built from U. S. military jeeps left on the islands after World War II, is normally exuberantly painted and personalized. They are known for their crowded seating and kitsch decorations, which have become an omnipresent symbol of Philippine culture. Taniguchi’s formal video portrait focuses on a gleaming stainless-steel example, fresh from the Celestial Motors factory. Stripped into its basic form and shot against a white backdrop, almost like an advertisement, Untitled (Celestial Motors) bears the jeepney as an object of study. Nearly static, abstracted details of the jeepney are intercut with deliberate pans across its body. Throughout her paintings, sculptures, and videos, Maria Taniguchi unpacks knowledge and experience—connecting material culture, technology, and natural evolution—and investigates space and time, along with social and historical contexts. Whether with her quasi-abstract brick paintings or with the moving images of plain and everyday objects, Taniguchi enforces the action of viewing upon our senses. The consequence is the reinterpretation of the objects, and the attainment of sensorial and cognitive experiences.


Throughout her paintings, sculptures, and videos, Maria Taniguchi unpacks knowledge and experience—connecting material culture, technology, and natural evolution—and investigates space and time, along with social and historical contexts. Whether with her quasi-abstract brick paintings or with the moving images of plain and everyday objects, Taniguchi enforces the action of viewing upon our senses. The consequence is the reinterpretation of the objects, and the attainment of sensorial and cognitive experiences.


Colors:



Related artist(s) to: Maria Taniguchi » Guan Xiao, » Adriano Pedrosa, » Akram Zaatari, » Asli çavuşoğlu, » Clara Ianni, » Daniela Ortiz, » Dumaguete City, » Emily Jacir, » Haegue Yang, » Hemali Bhuta

David
© » KADIST

Guan Xiao

2013

David is a five-minute pseudo music video that features an upbeat melodic soundtrack with a duet by the artist Guan Xiao and frequent collaborator (and KADIST collection) artist Yu Honglei...

Knotty Spell in Windy Drapes
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2016

A steel clothing rack adorned with turbine vents, Moroccan vintage jewelry, pinecones and knitting yarn, these heterogeneous elements are used here to create an exotic yet undefined identity within the work...

"Anonymous (Jradi and a friend)", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1972

“The two men were relatives and both were in the Lebanese Army.” Hashem El Madani...

Weather Forecast
© » KADIST

Guan Xiao

2016

Mixed clips from her collection of thousands of images found online, the three-channel video Weather Forecast is an inquiry into the necessity of a physical movement (a travel) for our identity to transform or change...

Future Tense
© » KADIST

Asli Çavusoglu

2018

Future Tense (2017), a 16-page diary, is a project in the form of a newspaper that brings together 50 oracles by people from various political opinions and ethnicities who consulted sand, lead, tarot cards, coffee grounds, blank sheets of A4 paper, dreams, water, clairvoyance, astrology, pendulums and horoscopes in order to reveal the point that Turkey has reached in news casting...

Mesopotamia Women’s Cooperative
© » KADIST

Asli Çavusoglu

2020

In the exhibition Pink as a Cabbage / Green as an Onion / Blue as an Orange , Asli Çavusoglu pursues her work on color to delve into an investigation into alternative agricultural systems and natural dyes made with fruits, vegetables, and plants cultivated by the farming initiatives she has been in touch with...

Two Palestinian Sisters
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1950

Hashem El Madani, a studio photographer in Saida, began working in 1948...

Office Voodoo
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2010

In addition to Yang’s signature drying rack and light bulbs, Office Voodoo includes various office supplies like CDs, paper clips, headphones, a computer mouse, a stamp, a hole puncher, a mobile phone charger...

The Rebellion of the Roots (France)
© » KADIST

Daniela Ortiz

2021

The Rebellion of Roots by Daniela Ortiz depicts a series of situations in which tropical plants, held hostage in the botanical gardens and greenhouses of Europe, are protected and nurtured by the spirits of racialized people who died as a result of European racism...

Anonymous, Studio Sherhazade
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1950

“In the 1980s I started using coloured paper backdrops, one of which was yellow...

Anonymous, Madani's parents home
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1950

“While taking the picture it was challenging to make the boys sit properly without moving...

"Anonymous", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1970

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls...

"Baqari’s wife", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1957

“These are negatives that were scratched because of a jealous husband from the Baqari family, who never let his wife out by herself...

The Devrek Sun Agricultural Development Cooperative
© » KADIST

Asli Çavusoglu

2020

In the exhibition Pink as a Cabbage / Green as an Onion / Blue as an Orange , Asli Çavusoglu pursues her work on color to delve into an investigation into alternative agricultural systems and natural dyes made with fruits, vegetables, and plants cultivated by the farming initiatives she has been in touch with...

"Two young men from Aadloun", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1966

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls...

Anonymous. Madani,’s parent’s home. The Studio, 1949-50
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1950

“Other photographers used to send me negatives of cross-eyed people, asking me to retouch them...

"Najm", Studio Shehrazade, Saida, Lebanon
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1956

“People often asked if they could pose with the Kodak advertisement where a full scale woman is featured with a camera offering Kodak rolls...

A girl and her brother. Studio Sherazade. 1960s
© » KADIST

Akram Zaatari

1960

“When you position your hand on someone’s shoulder, your shoulders become straight and horizontal...

General Joan Prim i Prats
© » KADIST

Daniela Ortiz

2013

Previously, Ortiz produced a series of photographs related to her research on the position of ‘service architecture’, the vital space given to domestic servants in the modernist architectural houses of South American upper class families...