EXHIBITIONS

These exhibitions 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.

■ Saeborg “I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU”
Saeborg’s primary practice of performance incorporating latex bodysuits has varied with each iteration, and new characters have continually emerged. The work in this exhibition, building on the foundation of past performances, adopts the perspective of “care” in the context of relationships between people and animals, which have formed a central axis of the artist’s works. By having viewers in the gallery become part of the performance, the distinctive structure of a museum exhibition is utilized to stage an event in which the viewers at times become the viewed.

■ TSUDA Michiko “Life is Delaying”
In this exhibition Tsuda explores the theme of physicality, which has strongly interested her in recent years. She presents an installation incorporating video equipment, centered on a new work inspired by family goings-on in a video shot when a video camera first appeared in her childhood home. A reenactment of commonplace events, captured through the lens from the camera operator’s perspective, takes documentation of the family – the smallest basic unit of society – as its starting point, but broadens its scope to encompass the positions of individuals within groups and systems.

Both artists take the body as one of their points of departure, and have developed their unique practices by alternating between production of artworks and physical expression. During the exhibition, in addition to the works of view, performances and other programs will beckon viewers into experiences that link the exhibition venue and their own bodies.

While the exhibition is on view various programs are scheduled.

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.
[Distribution by post] *The booking has been closed

Monographs will be mailed to those who wish to receive them (shipping cost will be borne by the applicant/ about 700 yen). Please apply using the reservation form below by Saturday, August 31. After receiving your application, we will inform you of the details by return e-mail.
*Distribution will be ceased once stocks are depleted.
*This application is only available for domestic mailing.

Photo&Video documentation:TAKAHASHI Kenji

Applications from the public were solicited in June 2021, and the selection committee members nominated candidate artists, including those from the public, and selected nominees through discussion. The two winners were then decided upon through an interactive screening process that included preliminary research on each artist, online-based studio visits and interviews.

International Selection Committee
Sofía HERNÁNDEZ CHONG CUY [Director, Kunstinstituut Melly]
NOMURA Shino [Senior Curator, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery]
TAKAHASHI Mizuki [Executive Director and Chief Curator, CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile)]
WASHIDA Meruro [Director, Towada Art Center]
Carol Yinghua LU [Director, Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum]
KONDO Yuki [Program Director, Tokyo Arts and Space]
*Positions and titles current as of the time of the selection process.

Selection Secretariat
Arts Initiative Tokyo [AIT]

The press release is available here.