ART CITIES:Tokyo-Mercedes Benz Art Scope 2018-20
The artist-in-residence program “Mercedes-Benz Art Scope” was founded in 1991 by Mercedes-Benz Japan as an artistic exchange program between young artists from Japan and Germany. Since 2003, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo has facilitated and presented the results in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz Japan and the Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart/Berlin. Each exchange pursues a specific theme through which independent artistic positions can unfold: conceptually with regard to the individual experience of cultural, urban, and landscape impressions, as well as with the handling of material and media.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Hara Museum Archive
In 2018, the Japanese artist Tsuyoshi Hisakado was sent to Berlin for the 2018-2020 program and from Germany, the Cypriot artist Haris Epaminonda was sent to Tokyo in 2019. The exhibition “Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2018-2020” presents the fruits of their respective experiences, as well as new works by a previous Art Scope participant, Meiro Koizumi (Berlin, 2010). All artists intend to present new work that addresses the current situation, made during a time of social and physical constraints. Tsuyoshi Hisakado has been drawing increasing attention for installations that incorporate samples collected of everyday phenomena, memories retained by particular locations and historical events and transformed into fragments of sound, light, and sculpture. Last year, his collaborative work with Apichatpong Weerasethakul debuted at the 58th Venice Biennale. The same year saw the staging of his first theater work “Practice of Spiral”. In March 2020, “Practice of Spiral”, his first large-scale solo exhibition in Japan, opened at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. For this exhibition, Hisakado, in his usual fashion of engaging in a dialog with a given space to find inspiration, will create an installation in the museum’s Gallery 11, taking advantage of its unique configuration – a gentle arc that seems to enclose the outer garden. Accompanying this installation will be other works that provide hints of possible future trajectories. Haris Epaminonda uses the technique of collage in her film/video works and installations. She became a focus of international attention at the 58th Venice Biennale last year when she was given the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant. As a long admirer of Japanese culture that began with an interest in the Japanese film director Yasujiro Ozu, Epaminonda, on her maiden visit to Japan, chose to reside in both Tokyo and Kyoto. This exhibition is a rare chance to view works inspired by those two very different cities by an artist who last showed in Japan almost 10 years ago in the exhibition The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection at the Mori Art Museum in 2009. Meire Koizumi is known for works that use theatrical techniques to highlight the relationship between humans and humans, between humans and society, and between words and the body. In recent years, he has also been creating artwork that uses VR (virtual reality) technology. At the Aichi Triennale last year, Koizumi made a big splash with the premier of “Prometheus Bound” his first theater piece using VR technology. This exhibition features works made during the most recent three-month period.
Info: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, 4-7-25 Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Duration” 23/7-6/9/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-16:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-17:00, www.haramuseum.or.jp
A reservation is required in order to visit the museum
