Chim↑Pom: Happy Spring

The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, is proud to present Chim↑Pom: Happy Spring, Japanese artist collective Chim↑Pom’s largest retrospective exhibition that opened on Friday, February 18, and is to run until Sunday, June 29, 2022.

* View the installation view images here (on the Mori Art Museum Flickr). * 

Equipped with highly original ideas and impressive energy, Chim↑Pom has undertaken numerous projects intervening in society in ways that constantly confound our expectations. With themes ranging from cities and consumerism to gluttony and poverty, Japanese society, the A-bomb, earthquakes, images of stardom, the mass media, borders, and the nature of publicness, their works serve as powerful statements on a plethora of phenomena and challenges in modern society, delivered mostly with a healthy dose of humor or irony.

With seemingly uncanny foresight, Chim↑Pom has also addressed in a number of their previous works the social issues of infection and discrimination against people with contagious diseases, and of bias, contamination and borders, all thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever perhaps is the time to observe their thought-provoking knack for raising issues pertinent to the zeitgeist.

This is the first-ever museum retrospective of Chim↑Pom, bringing together major works from the start of their 17-year career to more recent years, plus new works produced for this exhibition, approximately 150 works in total. Dynamic exhibition design, rich in creative ingenuity, also assists in shedding new light on the ever-surprising world of Chim↑Pom.

The title Happy Spring signals Chim↑Pom’s hope for a brighter spring even amid this seemingly never-ending pandemic, and that we retain our powers of imagination even if that long-awaited season arrives in the depths of adversity. In these unpredictable times, the powerful, convention-busting works of this enduring, but equally-unpredictable group of artists are certain to excite the imagination and serve as a guide as we join in contemplating a better future.

Highlights
Everything from earliest to high-profile and new works in a single, comprehensive retrospective
Chim ↑Pom: Happy Spring brings together a large selection of the extraordinary sextet’s best-known work, from early classic “Thank You Celeb Project - I’m BOKAN” (2007–2008) to the A-bomb-themed Making the Sky of Hiroshima “PIKA!” (2009) and LEVEL 7 feat. “Myth of Tomorrow” (2011); numerous larger works such as the “Build-Burger” series (2016/2018); small, humorous pieces, and an array of immersive/experiential works, in the world’s first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of work by the internationally-renowned Chim↑Pom.

The exhibition personally designed by the artists to astound and delight   
This is distinctly different to the usual, chronologically-arranged retrospective. Works are exhibited by sections such as “Cities and Publicness,” “Street” and “Don’t Follow the Wind,” and multiple viewing routes provided to encourage diverse readings of the exhibition. Visitors will also find themselves plunged into some dynamic exhibition spaces, including a large asphalt-paved street appearing on the bilayer structure within an exhibition gallery added as part of the spatial design, and an entire gallery space composed into a single giant installation featuring multiple works. A fascinating lineup of events and performances has also been organized on-site throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Seven newly-commissioned works, including an on-site nursery   
The exhibition features seven (7) new works, including the latest version of “SUPER RAT” which is Chim↑Pom’s self-portrait, a new sound installation conceived around the event of a Chim↑Pom member Ellie giving birth in 2020, a nursery (daycare center) being set up at the exhibition in a new art project Crying Museum inspired by the child-raising challenges of Chim↑Pom’s generation, and more.

Joining visitors to ponder the concept of “publicness”   
Not long ago, Chim↑Pom built a private road in the grounds of their studio on private land, allowing anyone to pass through. In Taiwan, they created a long street passing through the interior and outdoor spaces of an art museum and formulated a set of original rules to apply there. By this use of the “street” as a theme, they urge us to turn our thoughts to matters of “publicness,” and “the public and individual.”

Revisiting debates and dialogues around works by Chim↑Pom   
Some of Chim↑Pom’s past projects have ignited debate, those on Hiroshima and the Great East Japan Earthquake proving particularly controversial. This exhibition revisits such controversies, examining them from multiple viewpoints and presenting not only the works themselves but timelines and related material, and setting out the arguments for and against the works.

Things revealed ten years on from the 2011 quake, and now amid the pandemic 
Ever since the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Japanese artists have been working more than ever to help build a better society, and Chim↑Pom is no exception, undertaking multiple projects after the disaster. Now, ten years on, they are revisiting these projects.  It so happens that a number of Chim↑Pom’s projects of the past decade, such as the “border”-themed project carried out on the Mexico-US border in 2016-2017, and their large-scale participatory project at the 2019 Manchester International Festival, which dealt with the historical connection between a 19th-century cholera epidemic in the city, and beer, unintentionally deal with social issues highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Chim↑Pom also continues their sharp observations on the state of Japanese society, for example, in a new work set in Tokyo during 2020’s State of Emergency. Chim↑Pom: Happy Spring is designed to provide a platform for discussing these and other Chim↑Pom activities, with reference to the current social climate.

Read the entire exhibition opening press release here.

For media inquiries, please contact pr@mori.art.museum.