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| ◆Spirit
of Tea |
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KAIHATU YOSHIAKI, ISOZAKI
MICHIYOSHI
May 16 - June
8, 2002
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 16, 6-8PM
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The exhibition entitled "Spirit of Tea" is an
attempt to determine cultural space emerged out of Western
modernism but from a spatial conception that exists outside
the Western tradition. The exhibition is based on the traditional
Japanese aesthetic practice of chado, or tea ceremony, which
is now predominantly practiced by women in Japan. Chado
is a cultural practice that weaves the spiritual and physical
elements of everyday life in order to establish a new reality.
The tea space derives its significance from talk and pleasure
over a bowl of tea, and from watching the beautiful seasons
unfold every year, bringing great joy to its practitioners.
The intellectual exchange between the host and the guests
helps to create the spirit of the epoch they live in. "Spirit
of Tea" introduces two emerging Japanese artists: Yoshiaki
Kaihatsu and Michiyoshi Isozaki, grantees respectively of
the Pola Foundation and the Asian Cultural Council, and
currently living and working in New York City. Both artists
are creating community-based communication art. This is
representative of a generation of Japanese artists, who
came into the public view after 1990. In contrast to the
1980s' formalistic tendency in Japanese art supported by
the bubble economy, many artists started to doubt the commercial
system of art represented by the Ginza rental gallery system,
and ventured outside to examine different possibilities
in the visual arts.
The major part of the exhibition will be made up of Yoshiaki
Kaihatsu's artworks. His most remarkable accomplishment
to date is the work entitled 365 Project (1995-96). In the
early 1990s, Kaihatsu started to record his everyday life
with photographs and shopping receipt, and made them into
artworks to exhibit them in the galleries. This decisively
changed as he incorporated communication with people that
took place everyday in his television series. Between 1995
and 96, Kaihatsu held his own TV show everyday for 365 days,
which consisted of visiting anonymous people in different
areas of Japan, who, prior to his visit, had received his
life-size artwork, and discussing with them aesthetics along
with other matters of life. The project not only converted
venue for popular culture into art, but also inserted uncensored
conversations in mass media where often the information
is controlled by society's authorities. For "Spirit
of Tea," Kaihatsu will build a teahouse from materials
scavenged from the city, and will offer tea ceremonies according
to the enclosed schedule. The exhibition will feature on
a more diminutive scale works by Michiyoshi Isozaki. Isozaki
is popular among museum educators; he offers the precious
moment of creation through art workshops. On one occasion,
Isozaki spent one-and-half days with school children to
create a huge robot-like figure out of garbage bags, an
image taken from popular culture such as TV animation. He
inflated the robot, explored its interior body with all
the workshop participants, and finally tore it from the
inside. This offered the children a fantastic moment, since
it gave them an opportunity to experience something entirely
different from everyday life. "Spirit of Tea"
entails the poetics and the politics of tea. Poetics offers
an opportunity to enjoy the beauty of May, while participating
in a tea ceremony offered by the artist Kaihatsu. The politics
of this exhibition is to challenge the idea of modernist
space with notions of community and communication, and to
determine new possibilities in utilizing modernist space.
Exhibition Information:
Artist: Kaihatsu, yoshiaki
Title of the Exhibition: Spirit of Tea
Exhibition Date: May 16 ﾐ June 8, 2002
Opening reception: Thursday, May 16, 6 ﾐ 8 PM
Related events: Please see below.
Guest Curator: Midori Yamamura
Venue:
Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery
555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
Telephone: 212-925-1649 Fax: 212-226-9362
Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12 Noon - 6 PM
iseart@earthlink.net
URL: www.isefoudnation.org
The Works on View:
Kaihatsu, Yoshiaki
Happoen: A teahouse built with scavenged materials.
The tea will be served here at the workshops.
Namida no Ike (tear's pond): The artist cleans Ground Zero
with his modest dusting things, and will create a floor
installation, which is a graphic display constituted of
the dust from Ground Zero.
Cloudy Sky: A wall installation of the photographs of the
cloudy-sky images sent from different parts of Japan by
anonymous people.
Senbazuru (one thousand cranes): A display of one thousand
origami cranes.
Video Presentations:
365 Project, 1995-96
The Tea Ceremony, 2002
Isozaki, Michiyoshi
Parachute and Makio, 2002: A workshop given by the artist.
The participants will create small parachutes
with the artist.
Event Schedules:
May 16, 6:00-8:00 P.M.
Dokuro Caf ? (Skull Caf ? & Bad DJ Night)
The artist Kaihatsu will perform a bartender, makes opening
a part of his artwork. Kaihatsu will serve strange cocktails
that would make audience determine how our schemes of tastes
constituted between savory and unsavory.
May 25 & June 1, 1:00-4:00 P.M.
The Tea Ceremony
The participants of this workshop meet at the gallery at
1:00 P.M., and will go to the park to collect seasonal flowers,
and draw scrolls in nature. Later, coming back to the gallery,
each participant will fashion their own space in teahouse
by arranging flowers and placing the scrolls on the wall.
The artist will play the host of the tea, and will serve
tea to the guests.
June 8, 1:00-3:00 P.M.
Parachute and Makio
The artist Isozaki together with the participants of the
workshop will create parachutes containing the messages
of its maker. The parachutes will be stored in a doll- head
called Makio. The artist will open thedoll-head sometime
in August at PS-1 Contemporary Art Center in conjunction
with their summer workshop.
June 8, 6:00-7:00 P.M.
Noise Live
Closing live music performance by the noise band from Japan.
The music consisted of various noises. The gallery will
become an underground music venue. |
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