MOT COLLECTION
Survival Action—Focusing on New Acquisitions
22 October 2008 – 12 January 2009
4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku,
Tokyo 135-0022 Japan
Under the title “MOT Collection,” Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) is holding exhibitions examining the Museum’s permanent collection from fresh perspectives. In 2008 Period 3, MOT Collection is presenting a special exhibition entitled “Survival Action—Focusing on New Acquisitions,” featuring selected Collection works acquired in the previous fiscal year, with a focus on those of emerging artists. The works are being displayed together with referential artworks by Japanese and international artists.
Today, in a world rendered unclear, for good or bad, by a superabundance of things and information, when society and history fail to provide individuals with “meaning for living” and “correct values” in daily life, we can only choose or create our own meaning for living. And yet, in this opaque world where people are unable to share a unified vision, even the standards we choose change at a dizzying speed. As a result, it is hard in everyday life to feel the joyful reality of being alive. We must even then, however, make choices and decisions in order to live—what is correct, what truly has value, what is truly best to do? Amid our superabundance of things and information, and diversifying lifestyle choices, we experience a loss of freedom and can no longer find meaning or values we can believe in.
The works of many artists, who live in the same everyday world as we, demonstrate for us the freedom to act and change the existing framework, without succumbing to nihilism or withdrawing from contemporary life, or else fleeing to an outer imaginary world of their own making. Their endeavor—of using journal or documentation methods to observe the small events of our days, or altering familiar materials and motifs present around us in daily life—can help us find a new standpoint in our relationship with society and the everyday world. This special exhibition perceives the highly varied expression of such artists—particularly young contemporary artists, as “survival actions” for living in today’s opaque world.
We hope the exhibition will communicate the value of maintaining artworks for future generations, as well as the rich power of contemporary artworks to reflect our times.
Featured artists and creators:
Tobias REHBERGER, Yukio FUJIMOTO, Katsushige NAKAHASHI, SHIMABUKU, Koki TANAKA, Haruka KOJIN, Mika KATO, Yoshitomo NARA, Atsuko TANAKA, Yayoi KUSAMA, Kohei NAWA, Roy LICHTENSTEIN, Kentaro YOKOUCHI, Motohiko ODANI, Lucio FONTANA, Kiichiro ADACHI, Yuki KIMURA, Chie MATSUI, Richard LONG, Hamish FULTON, Naoki ISHIKAWA, Robert RAUSCHENBERG, Shinro OTAKE, Kenji YANOBE , Matthew BARNEY, Natsuyuki NAKANISHI, Takanobu KOBAYASHI, Mokuma KIKUHATA, Kazuo SHIRAGA, Yves KLEIN, Robert SMITHSON, Ryoko AOKI, Marlene DUMAS
Survival Action—Focusing on New Acquisitions is curated by Kohsuke MURATA Assistant curator, MOT.
Three additional exhibitions devoted to Brazil will furthermore be held in conjunction with this one: “When Lives Become Form – Contemporary Brazilian Art: 1960-present”, “Daido Moriyama and Miguel Rio Branco Photographic Exhibition” and “COLOR HUNTING IN BRAZIL – Dai Fujiwara + ISSEY MIYAKE Creative Room & Campana Brothers.”
Survival Action—Focusing on New Acquisitions was organized by: Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture
For further information please contact Kaoru Naito, Press Office, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan. Call 81-(0)3-5245-1134/fax: 81-(0)3-5245-1141, Email k-naito@mot-art.jp
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT)
4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0022 Japan
Tel: 81 (0)3 5245 4111
Fax: 81 (0)3 5124 1141
www.mot-art-museum.jp
