Akino Konodoh, Tomoko Konoike, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Okada Hiroko, Masao Yamamoto
The exhibition Eyes and Curiosity from Tokyo, at the Chelouche Gallery was a group exhibition of artists from Tokyo, Japan. The exhibition was in cooperation with Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo, which hald an exhibition of Chelouche Gallery’s Israeli artists in 2007.
This exhibition is unique in its ensemble, combining renowned artists as well as young artists, with original and fascinating point of view. Their work merges Japanese mythology with innovation and an amused look at the west culture.
The exhibition shows five video works as well as photography and animation drawings.
Akino Konodoh (born 1980, Chiba, Japan) exhibits a video work named Lady’s Bird’s Requiem, 2005-2006 (5:38 min.), together with animated drawings for the video.
This animated video tells the story of a little girl Eriko. Eriko’s character appears in all of Kondoh’s works as her ideal girl. In the beginning of the film the girl mistakenly kills two ladybirds. From this incident the girl’s guilt swells up to create an illusion of seeing button of her blouse as ladybirds, being submerged in such continuous wave of guilt and fear, she keeps sewing hundreds of buttons to the inside of her skirt. On this video Kondoh creates elevation and sinking in an imaginary world which simulates the girl’s adolescence experience.
Tomoko Konoike (born 1960, Akita, North Japan, lives and works in Tokyo) will show the video Mimio-Odessey, 2005 (11:30 mint.) and pencil drawings. The central figure in this film is the figure of Mimio. Mimio is a being between innocence and evil, existing in a zone undistinguished as human or animal. In Mimio-Odessey we are invited to follow Mimio on his journey to the woods accompanied by a fantastic beast and legendary characters.
Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba (born 1968, Tokyo, Japan) is exhibiting two videos works dealing with the way the Vietnam War was shown to the western eyes. The work Memorial Project Minamata: Neither Either nor Neither, 2002-2003 (16 min.) overlaps with the scares left from the Vietnam war and the post war tragedy, which occurred in Minamata, Japan. This work carries its role as a memorial piece; a living stone-tomb created in hope of preventing such tragedies from reoccurring in the future. The video Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas: Battle of Easel Point-Memorial Project Okinawa, 2004 (15 min.) shows a group of divers, wearing yellow gun-belts containing yellow paint tubes instead of explosives. The divers’ mission is to paint a portrait of Hollywood movie actors staring in films related to Vietnam War, an impossible, useless mission. The yellow paint dissolving in the water and their impossible task reflect the image of the Vietnam War as was shown in western movies. Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba is widely exhibited throughout the world in well known museums such as the Mori Museum in Tokyo, MUSAC in Spain, MARCO in Rome as well as Herzilia Museum in Israel. His works can be found in important collections would-wide such as the Guggenheim Museum collection and the Whitney Museum collection in the U.S.A, the Pompidou center in Paris and more.
Okada Hiroko (born 1970, Tokyo, Japan) exhibits the video Singing in the Pain, 2004 (7:56 min.). This video is a hallucination or a day dream in which a housewife is running between the huge apartment complexes of an unknown city, ecstatically dancing to the sounds of the song “I’m Singing in the Rain”. The event is being broadcasted on the news as a central happening until it comes to its surprising ending. In 2006 Hiroko exhibited in Israel in the group exhibition “PostGender” in Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art where she received enthusiastic responses.
Masao Yamamoto (born 1957, Gamagori, Japan) is exhibiting in Israel for the first time. Yamanoto will show a new series of works created especially for this exhibition. In his works Yamamoto creates a diverse, ambiguous and multi layered world of imagery which reflects Buddhist ideas connecting physical and mental experiences.
