Motoyuki Shitamichi

Photography (Photography)

Motoyuki Shitamichi launched his Torii project in 2006. He proceeded to visit and photograph torii that are situated outside Japan’s current national border. Expansionist Japan constructed numerous torii during its occupation of the Northern Mariana Islands (now a U. S. territory), Northeast China (former Manchuria), Taiwan, South Korea, and Sakhalin (the eastern most area of Russia).

Gala Porras-Kim

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

The graphite drawing 4 mourners on a mantel by Gala Porras-Kim is part of a larger installation and body of research, entitled An Index and Its Settings (Un Índice y Sus Entornos) , in which the artist reconsiders 235 ancient burial figures (from circa 200 BCE – 50 CE) from what is now Mexico’s Pacific coast that are part of the Proctor Stafford Collection held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Eschewing their current musicological function, 4 mourners on a mantel presents photo-realistic depictions of said figures on top of a hypothetical collector’s fireplace. Herein, these funerary objects are displaced as curios which stare back at the viewer in signs of grief and confusion.