Saeborg held a solo exhibition by Michiko Tsuda. “Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2022-2024 Award Commemorative Exhibition” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo) Report

“Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2022-2024 Award Commemoration Exhibition” will hold solo exhibitions of two artists.

The Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA) is a contemporary art award held by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Arts and Space (TOKAS) since 2018.Recipient of the 4th edition of this award, which was established to support the further advancement of mid-career artists.SaeborgandMichiko TsudaAn exhibition commemorating the award is currently being held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.The exhibition period is March 30th to July 7th..

TCAA is characterized by continuous support over multiple years, and in addition to holding a commemorative exhibition, award winners will receive a prize of 3 million yen, support for overseas activities, and a bilingual monograph (a collection of works) that can be used to disseminate information domestically and internationally. ) will be given the opportunity to create. Until now,Sachiko Kazama, Motoyuki Shitamichi, Hikaru Fujii, Chikako Yamashiro, Rieko Shiga, Kota Takeuchireceived the award, and in January of this year, the 5th “TCAA 2024-2026” winners Tetsuya Umeda and Natsue Wuwas announced.

This award-winning commemorative exhibition will be held on the third floor of the same museum as a solo exhibition focusing on new works created by two artists with support from each artist.An exhibition that showcases the artist’s creativityFree admissionBeing able to appreciate it is a great point for art fans as well.

Saeborg “I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU”

Saeborg was born in Toyama Prefecture in 1981 and lives in Tokyo. As an imperfect cyborg who is half human and half toy, he creates his own latex bodysuit that he believes allows him to transcend gender and age by being artificial. He creates performances and installations in which he and his performers wear them both domestically and internationally.

New work announced this time《I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU》(2023-24) is a new work that follows the performance “House of L” presented at “Aichi Triennale 2019 Jidai of Love.”livestockThe artist, who has always been interested in the state of things, has previously expressed industrial animals such as pigs and cows with latex bodysuits, but this time,dogappears. Pets are also livestock.

“The definition of livestock is that humans control their reproduction.Also, the “home” (which appears in this exhibition space) is a sanctuary related to human life in general, and at the same time, it has the dual meaning of having the potential for violence. This time, we have taken the livestock series, which has dealt with slaughtering and other topics, a step further, approaching the boundaries between humans and animals, livestock and pets, and exploring the emotions inherent in biopolitics. I wanted to think about it. It has to do with emotion and attachment.”(Saeborg).

When you step into the exhibition room, you’ll be greeted by a dollhouse-like space, and your eyes will be drawn to its cuteness and strangeness, including giant droppings and swarming flies. As you go deeper, you’ll find yourself in a somewhat science fiction-like space, with a dog named Saedog (a performer wearing a bodysuit) sitting on a circular pedestal in the center.

When I got closer, the dog noticed me and was definitely shaking its head as it looked at me, perhaps trying to show off its charm or complaining about something. Some people patted the child on the head, placed their hands on it, and said, “You’re so cute!”, while others looked at it from a distance.

What bothers me is that this dog is crying. When he looked up at me with moist eyes and said, “Kyuu~n”, I felt a complicated feeling of guilt mixed in, as if “poor” was now “cute”.

“Weakness shakes people’s hearts”says Saeborg. Citing the Disney movie “Dumbo” as a reference, he aimed for a design for this dog that would be cute and evoke feelings of compassion, just like Dumbo’s tears when he is separated from his mother.

“The cat I owned passed away last year.It was a long time coming, but in the end I had to give it an intravenous drip every day to try to prolong its life.The cat was crying in pain, and I felt sorry for it. I know it’s just her ego, but I still want her to live.My cat has given me a lot of care, and I wonder if I could have done anything for her in return. I have been thinking about being a woman and domestic violence, but what I do to my pets, including reproductive control through forced contraception, is domestic violence. I have continued to feel guilty about how this is different from such violence.However, livestock cannot survive without such control.”(Saeborg).

The artist says that even if he creates works, his feelings for his deceased cat will not be resolved or purified. The emotional interaction with pets and the ethical conflicts that arise when living together with them are likely to resonate with many viewers and stir their hearts.

In addition, in conjunction with this award, the author received support for his stay and research activities overseas and conducted research in various places. She talked about Marina Abramovic’s solo exhibition in Oxford as a memorable experience.There, she had a vivid experience of being bathed in an “aura” from the portal-shaped works that had been installed, and she experienced the alchemy of Abramovich.“The ability to use the emotions and energy that arise from within a person”It is said that he was influenced by.

“It’s a place that looks like a striptease theater and a church, and we’re focusing on the kind of emotional relationship this dog can form with everyone (in attendance).”(Saeborg). What kind of emotions and auras will overflow from the viewers and the dogs here, and will the space become an intersection? Each visitor is sure to have a different experience.

*The dog costume will always be in the exhibition room on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and will be in the exhibition room from 11:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 16:00 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. However, this may change depending on circumstances.For the latest information, please see the bulletin board at the venue orWriter’s SNSPlease check.

Michiko Tsuda “Life is Delaying”

Michiko Tsuda was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1980 and lives in Ishikawa Prefecture. She creates works in a variety of forms, including installations and performances that explore and utilize the characteristics of visual media. Her work spaces, which include video equipment and simple structures, affect the viewers’ perceptions and physical sensations, giving them awareness. Since 2016, as part of the performance unit “Baby Teeth,” she has developed performances that closely analyze the movements of characters in Yasujiro Ozu’s films and visualize the issues inherent in them, such as the distance between people and the role of women. I’ve been doing it.

Until now, Tsuda’s works have given me a cool and sophisticated impression, as if by shifting something or adding a slight effect, he approaches the medium of “image” itself.However, the new work announced this time《Hello camera-san》(2024) felt more emotional than ever before, and was a fresh surprise.

One of the main reasons for this is that this work is based on the personal records of the author and his family. The exhibition room has a set with a kitchen, dining table, and chairs, and a monitor on the wall that displays 12 images. All videos are performed by different actors and casts based on the same script. The script was based on a home video taken in 1988 when a video camera first came to the writer’s home during his childhood. A family scene that resembles a camera test begins when the child (the author, who was 8 years old at the time) notices that a light is on, indicating that the video camera has started recording, and utters, “Ah, it’s on!” It’s thrilling to think that this is the moment when an artist who uses images encounters a video camera, but the few minutes of interaction between the child and his parents that unfolds here is unexpected when viewed from a modern perspective. There are scenes that feel symbolic and draw you in.

“In 2008, when I was 28 years old, I found this home video footage and digitized it with the intention of turning it into a work someday, but after that I didn’t know how to deal with this footage and couldn’t turn it into a work.15 About a year has passed, and I felt that now was the time.The timing of receiving the award coincided with the coronavirus pandemic, and I also changed the way I live and work, started playing sports, and changed the way I approach my body. I decided to take a closer look at my own body and my family, the society I’m closest to.”(Tsuda).

When asked about the relationship between starting sports and this work,“Since I started running, I’ve been able to step into my physicality more than ever before.”A writer called.

“While playing sports, I sometimes find myself not being able to run the way I want, so I try to change the way I move, and I’ve started to look at my own body as an object. Also, when I went to a new place, I noticed by running around the city that I was able to objectively observe the behavior unique to that place and country, and learned the rules that took root there even while I was in the city. I felt that I could be outside of the world. I believe that facing my body by running and building my body leads to a form of resistance that allows me to break away from the rules of the place. I think that experience was utilized in this work. I’ve been thinking about turning the original footage into a work for many years, but it’s a tough task that can be embarrassing and tiring to keep looking at myself as a child and my father and mother back then, so it was difficult to do. It didn’t progress. But after gaining experience in sports, I lost a lot of that feeling, and I was able to look at my past self and my parents separately from my current self.”(Tsuda).

Twelve actors of various genders, ages, nationalities, and languages ​​were selected through auditions and will perform the roles of children, fathers, and mothers in each video. For example, a male actor who played the father in the first video may play the child in the next video, so the position changes, so even if the script is the same, the length of the video and the atmosphere between the family members will differ.“Various families stand up” (Tsuda).This scene also reminds us of the diverse ways families exist today. It would be interesting to compare this with the family scenes that appear in Yasujiro Ozu’s works, which the author studies, where the father is often placed at the center, symbolizing the patriarchal system.

In fact, in this work, it is also suggestive that the characters use the word “center.” At first, the father, who has acquired a camera, acts as the center of the scene, but the scene changes as the child interjects and the mother becomes the focus. The two of them are close, with the child sitting on her father’s lap and chatting, but the mother, who seems to be out of the loop, seems to be in a bad mood all the time, and her appearance changes slightly when the camera focuses on her. .“If I had to choose the main character of this work, I would say it would be my mother.”said Tsuda. This shows the artist’s interest in communication and systems within the smallest social group, the family. Additionally, past works featuring the artist, his mother, and grandmother are on display at the entrance to this exhibition, giving us a glimpse of his desire to explore the relationships between families and the women within them in his works.

At the venue, viewers can also enjoy an interactive experience where they can step inside the work. When the viewer enters the dining room set, the camera captures the viewer’s appearance, and the image of the family projected on the wall in front of it overlaps with the viewer’s image.

Regarding the exhibition title, “Life is Delaying,”“When I looked at the home video footage again, I thought, “Let’s try to imagine that this footage came first, and my life came later.” Another video technology is called delay. So I decided to connect that word with Life. I also thought I would think about the meaning of this title later.”(Tsuda). This exhibition will also feature works that utilize this delay effect, as well as video installations that focus on everyday behavior.

Although the two award-winning artists have different personalities, each has incorporated an awareness of gender-related issues into their work, and both exhibits depict “home” and families, including pets, and the emotions exchanged there. It was interesting to see a critical perspective on the surrounding system. It is a rare opportunity for an art museum to hold an exhibition of such scale that one can fully experience the artistry of a mid-career artist who is active both domestically and internationally. I hope many people will come and visit us.