Saeborg: I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU / Tsuda Michiko: Life is Delaying

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Arts and Space (TOKAS) has been presenting the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA) to mid-career artists in Japan since 2018. Two winners are selected for each award, and in the final year of a multi-year program of support provided to the artists, an award exhibition is held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

This exhibition featuring Saeborg and Tsuda Michiko, winners of the fourth TCAA, are titled I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU and Life is Delaying respectively. While the two adjacent exhibitions are separate presentations that differ significantly in terms of their concerns and creative approach, they have a commonality in that viewers’ actions in the galleries become part of the work. In viewing these works they also face themselves, and this leads to examination of relationships with others, including animals, and of roles that society expects.

About the artists
Saeborg: Born in Toyama in 1981. Lives and works in Tokyo. Saeborg is an imperfect cyborg that is half human and half toy. In performances and exhibitions both in Japan and abroad, Saeborg creates latex bodysuits through which she can artificially transcend physical characteristics such as age and gender. In her performances, she employs colorful and deformed representations of insects and livestock, including female cattle and pigs. These performances at first seem bright and playful, but they touch on issues of human cruelty and animal consumption as well as social issues like nursing and care. Her work defies characterization by simple dichotomies of strong and weak or benefactor and beneficiary, facing head-on the issues of coexistence and acceptance of diversity.

Recent exhibitionsand performances: Middlesbrough Art Week,England, 2023; Theater der Welt, Frankfurt and Offenbach, Germany, 2023; Ultra Unreal, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2022; Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22, Oshika Peninsula (Momonoura), Miyagi, 2021; solo exhibition LIVESTOCK, PARCO MUSEUM TOKYO, 2021, etc.

Tsuda Michiko: Born in Kanagawa in 1982. Lives and works in Ishikawa. Tsuda Michiko produces a diverse range of installations and performance pieces that incorporate characteristics of video media. She creates spaces containing video equipment and simple structures which blur perceptual boundaries, altering viewers’ perspectives and actions and inciting contemplation of cognition and physical sensation. Since 2016, Tsuda has also been one half of artist unit “baby tooth” with Kamimura Megumi. Together they hold performance lectures that closely analyze and reenact the choreography of characters from Ozu Yasujiro’s films to visualize issues such as the underlying distance between individuals and the role of women in society.

Recent exhibitions and performances: solo exhibition Michiko Tsuda so far, not far, Kanazawa Art Gummi, 2023;  Summer Vacation at a Certain Art Museum, Chiba City Museum of Art, 2022; The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10), Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2021; solo exhibition Trilogue, TARO NASU, Tokyo, 2020; Inter+Play Season 1, Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2020; as baby tooth OPEN SITE 2019-2020, TOKAS Hongo, 2020, etc.

About the monographs
Monographs (in Japanese and English, not for sale) on each of the winners are scheduled to be published in July 2024. In addition to images of the artists’ works, they will feature their texts discussing their creative processes and essays on the artists by specialists. After publication, they will be available on the TCAA website and will be distributed by post (in Japan only) to those who request them.

*Details to be announced on the website.

For the press release, please visit here. Organizers: Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Tokyo Arts and Space / Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo of the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture