MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL 2022 「New Soil」

From May 13 to 15, in Tokyo, an art event MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL 2022 New SOIL has been introduced to the public. As the core of the whole event, exhibition entitled "Voice of No Mans Land" was held. ArtTank was involved as a coordinator of the whole exhibition arrangements.

The image shows an video work by an artist Taro Shinoda, entitled "LRTT (Lunar Reflection Transmission Technique) ". Are the whole population over the globe seeing the same moon? This was the where the whole projected started from, The artist documented the moon from different places such as Istanbul, Boston, Rome, Basel, Los Angeles and Sharjah. Of course we may be seeing a different moon, But How? It is surely difficult to share one object with one viewpoint and are we all sharing the same understanding of the moon?

Over the years, Rui Sasaki has been producing a series entitled Subtle Intimacy since 2012. This time in Ebisu, she assembled pieces of works she has worked since 2012 to make a largest installation she has realized with this series up to this date. Plants she collected from various places are captured in the glasses. They are heated in a kiln to mark the traces of their lives. The artistic concept is not definitely about merely capturing the shapes of the plants, but it is more about showing their energy inside. Water and air within the plant pushes the glasses to create all the shapes and surface of the glass different, sometimes blasting and breaking the glass to make a hole. Each glass are still beautiful, but showing the captured energy of life.

It was very difficult to take a photo of this work in relatively dark exhibition hall. A canoe in the foreground is the installation by Miyanaga entitled "yui" (ties)" In the boat, audience were able to see clocks made of naphthalene. Naphthalene many not be so familiar material for people in Europe or the US, but here in Asian countries with high humidity, it is very daily material to have it in closets and drawers to keep the condition of cloths safe. Naphthalene easily vaporizes, and gradually loses its shape over time. In this work, the space inside the canoe was a completely closed space. The audience were able to see naphthalene crystals on the glass surface and the canoe which already shows that the naphthalene clocks are slowly fading away, vaporizing and changing the its shape in the confined space inside the installation.

New series of Genki-ro by Takashi Kuribayashi was exhibited in the hall taking an interesting shape. The series of the works actually works as a real sauna, to make people revived and energetic. The series started from Toyama Power Plant Museum, and then at Otani last year, this latest work, no. 3 was realized and used as a real sauna in the beginning of May in Zushi. Herbal steam heated in the kiln on the right will be sent through a pipe to the body of the work. This version was a small version with only one person to stay inside. It may be reflecting the recent condition of our life under Covid 19 situation.

Shinji Ohmaki made the latest version from his "Liminal Air Space - Time" series. It is a installation which always changes its shape by the flow of air. In the darkness, the work is very subtle to capture its concrete substance, as its shape constantly sways due to the wind, gravity, even by the movement audience around the work. The series has been presented with different versions up to this date, but the black version in a black space was the first time ever. From the work, we were able to feel the ambiguity of our sense of vision.

Yuko Mohri presented her updated version of the work she made originally in 2021. Audience were able to hear the sound of tennis from one monitor, and singing birds from the other. The sound was recorded by the artist while she had to stay in a hotel during quarantine, when she came back from her trip abroad. MIDI piano picks ups the sound through microphone to play the imitated sound of tennis and the birds, to make two solos on one piano.

Hiraku Suzuki's has been working with lines based on his long research of letters and symbols. His working series, Bacteria Sign, is based on his interest with the lines of veins of leaves. No leaves has straight lines. Therefore, once you place them on the floor, one after another, the vein always creates new lines. The artist started to place them for a while underground for a while to dig out the veins like a excavator. The work, Road sign is his installation piece using white road marks on collected asphalt after construction works. Here he takes over lines which had completely different function in real life to create an artwork of his own.

Aki Inomata is known for installations featuring living beings other than human. In this exhibition, she presented installation entitled "How to Carve a Sculpture". Woods on the white pedestal were carved by real beavers in a zoo. Some are very beutiful like Brancusi sculptures. This process was also introduced on the monitor how they are shaping the wood blocks. After getting the original sculptures by beavers, she asked human sculptors to make the same shape what beavers made. The result is larger pieces on the floor, some carved with chisel and some by machine. The installation's concept, is very important part of the work, and sometimes these works are very hard to grasp the interest of viewers. But here, along with the interesting sound and monitors the artist brought in, the installation was very popular among large audeince.

exhibition The Voice of No Mans Land at Meet Your Art Festival 2022: New Soil

artists：　Taro Shinoda ／ Takashi Kuribayashi ／ Shinji Ohmaki ／ Aiko Miyanaga ／ Hiraku Suzuki ／ Yuko Mohri ／ AKI INOMATA ／ Rui Sasaki

curated by Jyunya Yamamine, coordinated by ArtTank (Etsuko Kodaira + Toshio Kondo)

dates： May 13 (Fri) to May 15 (Sun)
venue： Ebisu Garden Place, Tokyo, Japan
organizer： MEET YOUR ART FESTIVAL 2022 Executive Committee （Avex Business Development Inc.)

exhibition preview is also at the following: https://bijutsutecho.com/magazine/news/report/25584