PRESS RELEASE

2024.6.21

Collection
Exhibition 1
2024.6.22 (Sat) 9.29 (Sun)Exhibition Title

Collection Exhibition 1

PeriodJune 22 (Sat) – September 29 (Sun), 2024 *Project Room until September 8 (Sun)Hours

10:00-18:00（until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays）*Ticket sales end 30 minutes before closing

Venue

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa,
Gallery 1 to 6, 13 and Long-Term Project Room, Project Room, Design Gallery

ClosedMondays (except July 15, August 12, September 16, and September 23),
July 16, August 13, September 17, September 24,2024

Number of Artists 20 groups
Number of works
Admission

68
Adults: ¥450 (¥360) / Students: ¥310 (¥240) / 18 and under: Free / 65 and over: ¥360
*Fees in parentheses are for groups of 20 or more and web tickets*Admission free for Kanazawa citizens on Promote the Arts Day: Free admission on the second Saturdayof each month during the exhibition (July 13, August 10, September 14) (Proof of residency required)

Timed-entry tickets

Web tickets for specific days/times are available on museum website(https://www.kanazawa21.jp)

Organized by

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa(Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)

Supported by

THE HOKKOKU SHIMBUN

Inquiries

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Tel: +81-(0)76-220-2800

Media Contact
Exhibition Curator: TATEMATSU Yumiko, UMETANI Ayaka
PR Office:YOSHITOMI Tomohiro, ISHIKAWA Satoko, OCHIAI Hiroaki
1-2-1 Hirosaka, Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan 920-8509
Tel: +81-(0)76-220-2814 Fax: +81-(0)76-220-2802
https://www.kanazawa21.jp E-mail: press@kanazawa21.jp

PRESS RELEASE

About
the Exhibition

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the museum’s opening, a large-scale collection
exhibition to showcase the most important function of the museum — its collection — will be held
throughout the year. The museum’s collection activities began in 2000, before the museum
opened, and based on the curators’ research and studies, the museum has been constantly
adding new works to the collection every year. The collection, which had approximately 200
items by the time of the museum’s opening, has now grown to approximately 4,200 items. This
collection represents both the history of the museum and its identity. The three policies
governing the collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa are: (1)works produced since 1980 that propose new values, (2) works influencing such new values andproviding points of reference in terms of art history since 1900, and (3) works rich in new
creativity closely associated with the Kanazawa area. This collection is both a mirror of thechanging times and a repository of the history of artistic expression that has been accumulated
and woven together. The collection exhibition is a platform for looking at the world, and to think
about and discuss the past, present, and future. It offers us an opportunity to look back over the
past 20 years and discuss the future.

Exhibition
FeaturesOn the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the museum’s opening, an
exhibition will be held to showcase significant works selected from ourgrowing collection.
Highlights include Diamond Dust Shoes from Andy WARHOL’s Retrospective series, in which hereinterprets his own iconic motifs; Abstract Painting by Gerhard RICHTER, a series displaying
the contemporary German master’s stunningly improvisatory and intuitive color combinations;and Takashi MURAKAMI’s Cosmos, which juxtaposes the classical painting motif of flowers with
anime and manga character-like elements. The exhibition presents key works from themuseum’s collection representing contemporary art movements from 1960s Pop Art to theconcept of “Superflat” that emerged in the 2000s.

Largest-scale works in the collection simultaneously exhibited
We will present one of the largest works in our collection, ZAI Kuning’s installation Dapunta
Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge, which extends approximately 19 meters. Constructed frommaterials such as rattan and beeswax, this work conveys the long history of people traversing
the seas of East Asia. FUJI Hiroshi’s Happy Paradies primarily consists of over 14,000 children’s
toys from major fast-food chain giveaways, inundating the exhibition space and symbolizing theremnants of present-day consumer society. These works will be prominently displayed, and exert
an overwhelming presence.

Experience innovative contemporary works rooted in traditional crafts
in Kanazawa, a city with a deep craft heritage (On view from June 22,
Saturday until August 12, Monday)
Kanazawa is a city with a rich legacy of craftsmanship, dating back to promotion efforts by the
Maeda clan of the Kaga Domain centuries ago. We present works by lacquer artists who apply
their extraordinary skills to innovative and contemporary works grounded in traditional
techniques.
TERAI Naoji employs an eggshell technique, in which quail egg shells are arranged and cracked
on a lacquer surface, producing intricate, three-dimensional and poetically resonant designs.
Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo revives the somada technique, which previously went extinct in thelate 19th century, combining blue seashell and exquisite gold and silver kirikane decorative
patterning to produce designs with jewel-like radiance and nuanced expression.
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PRESS RELEASEYAMAMURA Shinya combines lacquer with diverse materials including seashells, gold dust,
silver dust, iron powder, ivory, and washi paper, creating contemporary designs that dramaticallydiffer from traditional lacquer art.

Exhibition includes work shown for the first time since its acquisition, as
well as work by an artist we lost this spring (On view from August 14,
Wednesday until September 29, Sunday)
For the first time since it was acquired, we present SASAKI Rui’s Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023,
created while she was a specialist at Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo Glass Studio. She
encased plants in glass that maintains their forms unaltered, then fired them, and the work
presents the plants’ ashes and bubbles as poignant vestiges of their existence. It acts as anarchive, preserving memories of the land and environment where the plants grew, along with theartist’s recollections of gathering them.
FUNAKOSHI Katsura, a sculptor who sought to convey the universal human condition throughhis reflections on people’s complex and chaotic inner lives, sadly passed away in March of thisyear. He was a rugby player in his student days, and his sculpture Memory Being Supported
Once is inspired by a rugby match he once witnessed. The work portrays a scene of aconcussed player being helped off the field by teammates, which the artist found affecting andmade the subject of a work more than two decades later.

Main works inthe exhibition

Gallery1

SHIMIZU Akira
On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday

1

Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10, 1963
Born in Toyama, Japan in 1936. Lives and works in Saitama.
After graduating from Painting course of Kanazawa
College of Art in 1958, Shimizu Akira became friends withavant-garde artists of his generation and produced objects,
happenings and other works that went far beyond theaccepted notions of art. Later, his involvement withHIJIKATA Tatsumi led to his working on stage design,posters and costumes for performances of ‘Butoh.’ The
works he made after 1970 – fantasy-like creations
comprising cut-up photographs– reflect the landscapes of
the Japan Sea coast area where his hometown is located.
While Shimizu has been active in a wide range of fields, he
has always sought to reconcile the methodology of the

SHIMIZU Akira
Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10 1963
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H167.2 × W134.3cm© SHIMIZU Akira photo: SAIKI Taku

avant-garde with more indigenous elements.
Color-Blindness Testing Chart No. 10 was inspired by the test chart for detecting redgreen color
blindness. Red and green circles in various sizes are arranged on a white canvas to form aperfect round that touches the rectangle shape of the canvas. It appears as though they arearranged randomly, but they are in fact arranged to reveal the Arabic number 10 in tones of blue
when seen from afar. Studied up close, we can see that there are pasted images of pinups ofblond women, as well as images showing the bright and affluent urban life of early 1960s
America. Although it has elements of graphic design, the artist’s sense of humor can beperceived from the way he has chosen the gravure images and how he has combined theillusions produced from looking at the chart as well as the design of the color blindness test chart.

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Gallery1

YAMAZAKI Tsuruko
On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday

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Work, 1963 Work, 1964
On view from August 14, Wednesday until
September 29, Sunday

Work, 2004 Work, 2004 Work, 2004
Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1925. Died in Hyogo in 2019.
Yamazaki Tsuruko was a founding member of the Gutai
Group, which was formed in 1954. She later participated in
the establishment of the Artist Union and had taken part insolo and group exhibitions where she had presented arange of works including three-dimensional pieces madeusing sheets of tin, per formances, and paintings.
Throughout her decades-long career, Yamazaki had
produced work on the themes of real and virtual images andsight/cognition/recreation that expresses her unique outlook
on the relationship between the individual and the world.
Two pieces of Work from the 1960s (on view until August12) are paintings that combine geometric compositions
with organic forms. The paintings, filled with a variety ofcolors and forms, exude an overwhelming presence.
Pieces of Work from 2004 (on view from August 14) werecreated by pouring industrial dyes onto tin sheets. This is a

YAMAZAKI Tsuruko Work 1963
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H183 × W92cm© YAMAZAKI Tsuruko
photo: SAIKI Taku

revival of Yamazaki's early style of production after half acentury. Like a mirror, the tin surfaces, layered withmultiple colors, reflect our image as we face them, drawing
us into the world of the work.
Gallery2

KIMURA Taiyo
Untitled, 1997-2004
Hatarake Hatarake (Work Work), 2005
Friction / Where is a Lavatory?, 2005
Feel Your Gravity, 2005
Life's An Ocean/Dead Finks Don't Talk, 2007

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Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1970. Lives and works there.
Kimura studied oil painting at an art academy but eventuallychanged to installations and three-dimensional work. He
began exhibiting artworks from the mid-1990s and, from1999, twice undertook art residences in Germany. Since his
student days, Kimura has recorded his ideas and dreams indrawing books or on video as a source for the creation of art.
His works, which employ familiar, everyday materials andsituations, feature a blend of distinctive humor, amiability,
unexpectedness and uncanniness that often induces visceraldiscomfort in the viewer. In this way, Kimura endeavors tocommunicate, directly to our physical sensibilities, theabsurdity that underlies ordinary, everyday life and to reveal
the true essence of things.
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KIMURA Taiyo Feel Your Gravity 2005
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa© KIMURA Taiyo
photo: SAIKI Taku

PRESS RELEASEIn Friction / Where is a Lavatory?, the hands of a cluster of clocks pushed together collide andobstruct one another, and the viewer experiences the vibrations and mechanical noise produced as
the clock hands are prevented from turning, holding back the progress of time. In Feel Your Gravity,
where many eyes cut out from a women’s magazine are pasted onto one of the magazine’s pages,
the artist examines the mob psychology of people and their instinct to gravitate toward systems andsurveillance.
Outside of Gallery 2

Carsten HÖLLER
Kanazawa Sliding Doors, 2004
Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1961. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden.
After studying both plant pathology and agricultural entomology and obtaining his doctorate,
Höller began to be active as an artist in the latter half of the 1980s. By making the most ofdifferent media, his expression is wide-ranging from a single three-dimensional piece to alarge-scale installation occupying the whole space. His style on the whole is scientific and basedon highly developed technology. We can fully realize through our experience of his work theunreliability of our perceptions and doubts about reality. Consequently, our stirred sensitivity is
stimulated and we can encounter aesthetic experiences even further.
Kanazawa Sliding Doors consists of five automatic doors. These double doors set in a corridor
between two exhibition rooms are completely mirrored, so that we find ourselves being in the world
surrounded by mirrors each time we pass through the doors. The opening and closing movementof automatic doors almost brings us back to daily life in a moment, but passing through the doors a
few times, we repeatedly step into the same kind of space. When someone unexpectedly comesfrom the other side of the door, however, the mechanical repetition of this experience is broken, andit arouses our feelings of all sorts. As plural visitors are involved, unexpected events occur in thesystem structured by the artist. As a result, our experience is enriched through this work that makes
the most of the feature of the museum corridor where people come and go.
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Carsten HÖLLER Kanazawa Sliding Doors 2004
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H230 × W256 × D1500cm© Carsten HÖLLER photo: © ANZAÏ

Gallery 3

YAMAMURA Shinya
On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday

work 1998-1, 1998 work 1998-2, 1998 work 1998-3, 1998
work 2000-1, 2000 work 2000-2, 2000 work 2001-1, 2001
work 2001-2, 2001 work 2001-4, 2001 work 2001-6, 2001
Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1960. Lives and works in Kanazawa, Ishikawa.
Strongly impressed by MATSUDA Gonroku’s lacquer work that depicted a white egret using theeggshell technique, Yamamura decided to pursue lacquer art. He studied lacquer at Kanazawa
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College of Art and at its graduate school, participating in numerous group exhibitions while atcollege. After finishing the graduate course, he participated in many international exhibitions andwon recognition.
The characteristic of his works is that each work remarkably realizes varied expressions in aform that is small enough to be held on a palm of the hand. He is also characterized by bringing
out possibilities of ever-changing material lacquer by his own hand in a careful yet bold manner,and he fuses various cultural roots in different regions and periods into abstract expression. His“Work” series is a group of works made by using various lacquer techniques: ‘maki-e’ (lacquer
sprinkled with gold or silver), ‘hyomon’ (metal-sheet inlay), ‘rankaku’ (eggshell), ‘raden’ (mother-of
pearl inlay), etc. An animated microcosm is condensed in each of these small works. Someworks appeal glossy beauty of lacquer, showing serene luster of vermillion or black lacquer, whileother works utilize lacquer as an adhesive for covering the surface with eggshells and turban
shells to bring out different charms of various materials. He joins together such heterogeneousmaterials as brass, wood piece and deer hair thus stimulating viewers’ senses and enablingthem to freely expand their imagination. While lacquer is unable to keep its shape by itself, heshows us infinite possibilities of the form, nature and impression of lacquer when it is combinedwith different materials.

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YAMAMURA Shinya work 1998-1 1998
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H10.8 × W4.3 × D2.2cm ©YAMAMURA Shinya
photo: SUEMASA Mareo

Gallery 3

TERAI Naoji
On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday

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Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e, 1981
Born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan in 1912. Died there in
1998.
Terai specialized in the lacquer ware section of the
Ishikawa Prefecture Industrial School, then entered thelacquerware course in the craft section of the Tokyo
School of Fine Arts. His teachers were ROKKAKU Shisui,
MATSUDA Gonroku, and YAMAZAKI Kakutaro. He alsostudied the application of lacquer to metal at the Institute ofPhysical and Chemical Research. His career as a lacquerartist began when his work was accepted for the FirstJapan Ar t Exhibition (Nitten) in 1946. He earned areputation for delicate and richly expressive lacquerware
created with the technique of eggshell inlay. He was also
known for his research in electrolytic processing of
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TERAI Naoji Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e 1981
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H6 × φ8.5cm ©TERAI Naonori
photo: SAIKI Taku

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aluminum forms for application of lacquer. In 1983, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred
Treasure, Fourth Class. In 1985 he was designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural
Property.
In Tea caddy, peony design, maki-e, which Terai created in his late 60’s, he creates a subtle color
by applying colored lacquer to the reverse side of the white eggshells, and draws butterflies andflowers on the body of the tea caddy by using maki-e techniques such as hyomon’ (metal-sheet
inlay), ‘raden’ (mother-of pearl inlay), and ‘kimpun maki’ (lacquer sprinkled with gold). In many of
his works, his skillful technique of eggshell and excellent sense of modeling express the motifs
with depth and emotion.
Gallery 3

Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo
On view from June 22, Saturday until August 12, Monday

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Cross, sarasa design, maki-e, 2007
Sacred egg casket, firefly design, maki-e, 2010
Born in Ishikawa, Japan in 1952. Lives and works there.
Kitamura Tatsuo, a lacquer craft studio head and producer,
works under the name Unryuan. Among the various
Japanese lacquer techniques, Kitamura especially excels
in mother-of-pearl (‘raden’) and gold lacquer (‘maki-e’). He
has invested great effort in recreating lost techniques ofusing mother-of-pearl and gold lacquer, such as were usedin Inro cases and the Somada technique of fine shell inlay.
Besides creating his own original works at the Unryuan
studio, he has in recent years also devoted energy torestoring traditional items used by Edo period (1615-1868)
feudal lords, such as ‘jusshukobako’ incense game setsand ‘kai-oke’ clamshell game buckets. Restoring suchitems requires a range of sophisticated craft techniques,

Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo
Cross, sarasa design, maki-e 2007
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H13 × W9.5 × D4.2cm©Unryuan, KITAMURA Tatsuo
photo: WATANABE Osamu

including woodworking, cord tassel, lacquer painting, andporcelain ceramics. These projects are undertaken as a group in order to pass down thetechniques to younger generation artisans. Kitamura also actively engages in collaborations withoverseas name brands and independent watch makers, such as the Waltham watch company,
America’s oldest brand of watch with a history of 160 years.
Minutely cut and inlaid mother-of-pearl and cut-metal foil (‘kirikane’) are featured in many ofUnryuan’s lacquer works. The works display profuse, detailed decoration and move us with thebeauty of their metal foil and mother-of-pearl patterns. The technique employed, ‘saiei maki-e’(color-shadow gold lacquer), uses dark and light contrasts to impart a three-dimensional visual
effect to the traditional Somada technique of mother-of-pearl and cut-metal foil. An originaltechnique created by Unryuan, saiei maki-e manifests colors of profound richness, depending on
the angle of light. Somada-zaiku is a technique of extremely detailed burnished maki-eestablished by SOMADA Kiyosuke, an artisan invited from Kyoto by the Toyama clan in the 17th
century. It was later lost in the 19th century. Unryuan has recreated this technique, imparting acontemporary feel to it under the name saiei maki-e, and fully employed it in the works shown.
Contemporary design born from traditional Japanese craft yet unrestrained by Japanese style isan Unryuan hallmark reflecting the studio’s unique world view.

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Gallery3

FUNAKOSHI Katsura
On view from August 14, Wednesday
until September 29, Sunday

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Memory Being Supported Once, 2001
Drawing for “Memory Being Supported Once”, 2001
Born in Iwate, Japan in 1951. Died in March 2024.
Since the 1980s, Funakoshi Katsura has produced wooden,
half-length sculptures of people. He has consistently used
the same technique, which is to fashion the bodies andheads from camphor wood, paint them, and insert coloredmarble for the eyes. The harmony between the smoothness
and delicateness of the heads and the vigorousness of thechisel marks left all over the sculptures is a distinctive
feature of Funakoshi’s work. The sculptures, which possessa kind of spirituality more commonly associated with Shinto
and Buddhist images rather than figurative sculptures,
exude an air of tranquillity and nobility.

FUNAKOSHI Katsura
Memory Being Supported Once 2001
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H109 × W64 × D35cm ©FUNAKOSHI Katsura
photo: NAKAMICHI Atsushi / Nacása & Partners

Funakoshi’s work is characterized by the exquisite marriage of seemingly contradictory qualities,
such as the balance between the smooth, delicate heads and the rough, vigorous bodies, and thewarm yet refreshing atmosphere created by applying color to the wood in such a way that thegrain is still visible. In Memory Being Supported Once, two heads are set on one body. The pieceis based on a scene the artist, who played rugby as a student, witnessed during a rugby game.
According to Funakoshi, he nursed the idea of turning this scene in which a forward sufferingfrom concussion was helped off the pitch by a teammate into a work for more than 20 years.
Many preparatory sketches for this sculpture survive, offering valuable insights into the process oftrial and error that went into elements such as the composition, in which one figure embraces theother and in which the heads of the two figures are joined. Drawing for “Memory Being Supported
Once” is one of the final sketches made before the sculpture was produced.

Gallery4

Beatriz MILHAZESThe Blue House, 2001 Black Power, 2003-2004
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1960. Lives and works there.
Since the 1980s, Beatriz Milhazes has established her own painting methodology and created a
new manner of expression. At a glance, the vibrant juxtapositions of motifs that distinguish her
paintings appear to be computer graphics-generated. She has nevertheless created her entire
methodology herself through years of working trial and error. Milhazes has always placedemphasis in her work on her own spirit and physical sensibilities. Her works, which seem tooverflow with diverse energy, continually open doors to new potential in contemporary painting
expression.
In her method of production, Milhazes rarely employs preparatory sketches and begins working
directly on the canvas. For the most part, what she paints on the canvas will constitute thebackground. She paints her motifs of flowers and geometric patterns on a plastic sheet and, after
drying them, transfers the motif to the canvas. Although the overall picture is dominated by animpression of flatness, the residue of colors and varying sentiments and memories building up on
plastic sheets used repeatedly over the years coincides with an aged peeling wall effect produced
when the motif is peeled from the plastic sheet. Together with the countless motifs juxtaposed
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organically on the canvas, this engenders an emotionally chaotic world. The visual effect ofthese works, weakened in centrality through their use of many circles, curves, and other such
motifs, couples with poetic titles like "The Blue House" and "Black Power" and strongly affects
our sensibilities.
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Beatriz MILHAZES Black Power 2003-2004
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H300 × W300cm ©Beatriz MILHAZES
photo: SAIKI Taku

Gallery4

Andy WARHOL
Diamond Dust Shoes, 1980-81
Born in Pittsburgh, USA in 1928. Died in New York in 1987.
Born to Czechoslovakian immigrants, Andy Warhol studied commercial art at Carnegie Instituteof Technology. In the mid-1950s he worked as a commercial designer in New York before
beginning to make fine art in 1960. Warhol met with stunning success after employing thetechniques of mechanical reproduction, such as silkscreen, to create images from popular
culture. He also launched a magazine, created experimental films, produced music andconducted various projects across a wide range of media. The result was his exerting a massive
influence on subculture.
Diamond Dust Shoes is from Warhol’s Retrospective series, which he began in 1979. In it hesampled motifs from his own best-known works. In 1955, when he was still working as acommercial designer, Warhol had been commissioned by shoemaker I. Miller to make a series ofillustrations on the theme of ladies’ shoes. This work relates back to that very early motif. At first
Warhol had considered making the work using diamond dust, but in order to maximize thesparkle that would emanate from the completed work, he ultimately settled on crushed glass.
Thus, it was with shoes that Warhol made a name for himself as a commercial designer. Also, he
named the drawings of shoes after celebrities. These pieces of fact suggest that he saw shoes asa symbol of fame and success. This idea is emphasized here, with combining the motif of shoes
with the glitter of diamonds - a symbol of wealth. This work uses crushed glass in order toreproduce the glitter of diamonds.
Gallery4

MURAKAMI Takashi
Cosmos, 1998
Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1962. Lives and works in Tokyo and New York, USA.
Murakami Takashi studied Nihon-ga (Japanese-style painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts,
where he completed his doctorate in 1993. Since unveiling his works using Japanese-style9

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painting and plastic models at his first solo show in 1989, Murakami has persistently challenged
the context of Western dominated art by referencing culture peculiar to Japan as represented by
the likes of anime, manga, pop-culture and otaku. His artistic practice extends to collaborations
with the fashion industry, planning exhibitions, and presiding over the GEISAI art fair, among
many other activities.
Cosmos links quintessentially classical subject matter in the form of flowers with character-themed
elements such as anime and manga. The title derives from the fundamental principle of theuniverse, which is that everything has a spiral structure. The sense of weightlessness that stems
from the work’s sheer frontality and flatness, and the airiness that pervades the flowers, which arereminiscent of a characterless smile, hint at a superficial sense of spaciousness as well as theunstable state of mind of contemporary people.

Gallery4

Damien HIRST
Untitled, 2000
Born in Bristol, UK in 1965. Lives and works in London and Devon.
While studying at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1988, Damien Hirst took the
initiative in organizing an exhibition, “Freeze,” for fellow artists of his generation. In the late 1980s,
his art works produced a sensation in the British contemporary art world, which had fallen into
dormancy, and he became the most prominent figure in the world-renowned YBA (Young British
Artists) phenomena. These works evince a style both harsh and peaceful, in which cruelty andbeauty coexist. Multi-layered and filled with contradiction, Hirst’s art deals with issues close to thefoundation of human existence.
Ever since his 1991 solo exhibition “In and Out of Love,” Damien Hirst has continually produced
paintings of butterfly theme. In Untitled, Hirst has once again expressed his idea that “death canappear beautiful.” While having a heart shape expressive of love and life, the work is flecked withdead butterflies, a portion of whose wings have melded with the glossy pink canvas. The feelingsof shock awoken by the image of dead animals mixes with a sense of wonder at the beauty of thebrightly colored butterflies. Hirst’s stance of evoking life’s vigor by confronting us with theinescapable truth of death can also be understood from the work.

Gallery4

Luc TUYMANS
Double Sun, 2006

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Born in Mortsel, Belgium in 1958. Lives and works in
Antwerp.
Luc Tuymans studied painting at the Koninklijke Academievoor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp from 1980-1982, and art
history at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels from 1982-1986.
Tuymans takes as his subject matter scenes that catch his
eye either directly as part of everyday life or indirectly via
TV, newspapers, and other media, portraying everythingfrom ordinary everyday scenes to grand themes such aspolitics, religion, and history in a fragmentary, impersonalmanner. As well, he often reconstructs fragments ofimages in his paintings by incorporating cinematic
techniques such as cut ups, close ups, and montage.
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Luc TUYMANS Double Sun 2006
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H168 × W142cm © Luc TUYMANS
photo: SAIKI Taku

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These fragmented paintings highlight the purest aspects of, and aspects peculiar to, images
hidden in everyday life.
Double Sun has a bold, clear-cut composition, and its ghostliness and floating sensation further
emphasized by the colors and scumbling of the image. The motif of double sun, the symbol of
the Jesuits, can also be interpreted as an inquiry into aspects of contemporary society such as
the struggle for power characterized by the series of terrorist attacks. Precisely because thiswork is so peaceful and seemingly devoid of any kind of emotional expression, it evokes in theviewer an indeterminable sense of instability and uneasiness.
Gallery4

Gerhard RICHTER
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Abstract Painting (CR 845-5), 1997
Abstract Painting (CR 845-8), 1997
Born in Dresden, Germany in 1932. Lives and works in
Cologne.
Gerhard Richter received his art education under theformer East German regime, but was strongly influenced
by abstract expressionism which he encountered during a
trip to West Germany and moved to Düsseldor f six
mont hs before t he Ber lin Wall was erec ted. T heoverriding theme of his work has been ‘Schein’ (illusion,
appearance, semblance), which he interprets as thefoundation reflecting all existence, and he has continuallycrossed the boundaries between visibility and invisibility,
photographs and paintings, reality and fabrication as part

Gerhard RICHTER
Abstract Painting (CR 845-5) 1997
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
H100 × W90cm © Gerhard RICHTER
photo: KIOKU Keizoof his pursuit of ‘seeing,’ while at the same time applying
his masterful painting technique to work in a variety of different styles.
In his Abstract Painting series, Gerhard Richiter creates multiple layers of color by combining
paints in an improvisatory way and stretching and scraping them with a large spatula speciallymade by him.
Gallery5

SHIMABUKU
Something that Floats / Something that Sinks, 2008

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Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1969. Lives and works in Okinawa.
While traveling extensively around the world from the early
1990s, Shimabuku has performed and made installations
c onc er ning a human way of life and new ways ofcommunication. He participated in group exhibitions at
Pompidou Centre in Paris, Hayward Gallery in London, and anumber of international exhibitions such as Venice Biennale
2003 and São Paulo Biennale 2006. His solo exhibition washeld at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,
Kanazawa in 2013.
In Something that Floats / Something that Sinks, vegetables
selected from neighboring vegetable stores are carefully put
into a water tank and, floating in the water, they areregenerated as ‘exhibits’ and meet visitors. They repeat
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SHIMABUKU
Something that Floats / Something that Sinks
2008
Collection: 21st Century Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable © SHIMABUKU
photo: SAIKI Taku

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floating up and sinking in the water, and before they go bad, they are replaced with fresh
vegetables by the museum staff, who was told by the artist to eat them. In other words, thevegetables provide a motive for the artist, dealers, viewers and staff to communicate with eachother ceaselessly during the exhibition period.
Gallery6

Zai Kuning
Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge, 2016-17
Born in Singapore in 1964. Lives and works there.
Using a variety of techniques, including music, video, performance, sculpture, drawing, andinstallation, the artist presents works that recall the history of people who have come and goneacross the waters of East Asia, regardless of national borders. Using natural materials such as
rattan and thread, he conveys a powerful message through abstract imagery. He is also stronglyinterested in the physical act of filling time and space, such as by hardening his own past works
with beeswax.
Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge began with research Zai conducted in 2001 in
search of the Orang Laut, the ancient inhabitants of the Riau Islands, as part of an artist
residency program offered by TheatreWorks in Singapore. Three years later, Zai encountered atheater group of “mak yong,” an ancient Malay folk drama, and has developed a collaborative
relationship with their art form. Zai’s encounter with the Orang Laut and mak yong performers,
and with the bearers of an old tradition that had been discriminated against, led to a series of
installations that delved deeply into Malay history and was named after its central figure, the firstking of ancient Malaya, Dapunta Hyang Jayanasa.
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Zai Kuning
Dapunta Hyang: Transmission of Knowledge 2016-2017
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable © Zai Kuning
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Gallery13

Gabriel OROZCO
Ping-Pond Table, 1998 Piedras en la Reja (Stones in the fence), 1989
Untitled, 1992 Untitled, 1993 Untitled, 1993 Atomists: Double Stump, 1996
Burned Notes, 1996 Barda de Latas, 1998 “Penske Project” series (3 pieces), 1998
Ex-Vitral, 2000 Untitled, 2000 Untitled, 2000 Fear Not, 2001
“Katagami Prints” series (7 pieces), 2001 Lluvia en Tokio, 2001
Perro en silla, 2001 Rolled Ink, 2001 Star Caps, 2001
Born in Veracruz, Mexico in 1962. Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico and New York, USA.
Gabriel Orozco’s works span a range of different media including photography, drawing, sculpture,
video, and installation, and usually involve the transformation of existing objects or things or
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interventions in familiar everyday scenes. By laying geometric patterns over news photographs,
covering a skull with a checkered pattern, or cutting a car lengthways to create a single-seater
vehicle, for example, he seeks to overturn the existing order and find in things meaning or
connections that transcend space-time. Drawing on his study of mathematics and profoundknowledge of architecture, he seeks to reconstruct from his own unique perspective the orderlinking all things in the universe.
Orozco’s practice of slightly altering existing things or situations or intervening in them by adding
geometric elements is noticeable Atomists: Double Stanp that was first unveiled in 1996 at the“Empty Club” exhibition in London. The title of this work, which was made by cutting out
photographs from the sports section of a newspaper and adding oval patterns, derives from thephilosophy of atomism developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus. Ping-Pond Tableis a typical example of Orozco’s game-themed works. The ping-pong table is shaped like afour-leafed clover, and the hollow in the center is filled with water, upon which water lilies float. The
form of the game as we know it is transformed, and as a result the very act of viewing, including
discovering the rules and experiencing the game, becomes closely connected to the creation of
the piece. Orozco’s penetrating insight into reality and refined sculptural sensibility can also beseen in his drawings and photographic works. His art practice demonstrates symbolically his
approach of treating the everyday as a place setting and seeking to uncover new relationships andframes of reference in thought, creative processes, forms of expression, and the act of viewing.
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Gabriel OROZCO Ping-Pond Table 1998
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H76.7 × W424.5 × D424.5cm © Gabriel OROZCO
photo: KIOKU Keizo

Long-Term Project Room

SASAKI Rui
Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023, 2023
Reminiscences of the Garden –from Jacob Knapp–, 2022-2023 (private collection)
Reminiscences of the Garden –from Jacob Knapp–, 2022-2023 (collection of the artist)
Born in Kochi, Japan in 1984. Lives and works in Kanazawa, Ishikawa.
After majoring in glass at Musashino Art University, Sasaki moved to the United States to complete
her master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. Since returning to Japan in 2012, she
has been producing glass works with themes of nature and the environment that stir the senses
and act as vessels of memory.
In this series, she presses plants found in her surroundings between sheets of glass and fires them,capturing ash and bubbles as vestiges of the process. Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023, created overmore than a decade from 2012 to 2023, represents a culmination of a project that “freezes plants intime,” conveying a “subtle intimacy” that she senses in her environment. By encapsulating plants inglass, she foregrounds normally unseen aspects of the environment. Moisture from the atmosphereand components of the soil absorbed by the plants become visible within the glass. When light13

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passes through the glass, the plant ash becomes translucent, revealing intricate leaf veins usuallyinvisible to the naked eye. By causing plants to stand in for her own memories, Sasaki explores theintimacy that unconsciously pervades our daily lives while affirming her own existence. The
uniquely delicate quality of glass is in extraordinary harmony with the theme of “archives ofmemory” frequently addressed in contemporary art. By entrusting her memories to non-human“plants,” this work presents a new relationship between plants and humans.
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SASAKI Rui Subtle Intimacy 2012-2023 2023
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
H253.5 × W310 × D332cm ©SASAKI Rui photo: TAKAGI Yuu

Project Room

FUJI Hiroshi
On view until September 8, Sunday

Happy Paradies, 2015
Born in Kagoshima, Japan in 1960. Lives and works in Akita.
Devoted himself to theatrical activities while studying at Kyoto City University of Arts. Later shifted
his attention to creative activities based in his local community, establishing the performance unit
Kyoto Johosha. After completing a master’s degree at Kyoto City University of Arts, Fuji lectured at
Papua New Guinea’s National Art School as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer for JICA
(Japan International Cooperation Agency). Then, after joining an urban planning group, heestablished in 1992 the Fuji Hiroshi Design and Production Room. Since then he has been
engaged in creative activities arising out of community resources, appropriate technology andcooperative relations in various locations.
Founded in Fukuoka in 2000, Kaekko is an exchange system for once-loved toys devised by Fuji
and run by local residents in thousands of public and commercial facilities and other locations
nationwide in an effort to encourage voluntary activities among children. This initiative addresses
various issues facing society, including environmental education and disaster education, and isbecoming increasingly popular as an activity that has the potential to “transform” the regions.
The materials for Happy Paradies consist mainly of the toys given away with meals by fast foodchains that have accumulated, never having been exchanged, over the 15 years that Kaekko
workshops have been held around the country since the system was established in 2000. The taskof arranging the toys is carried out by people other than the artist on their own initiative, and thischanging appearance is an important component of the installation and the reason why it can bethought of as a clear expression of the Kaekko program itself. The use of the neologism “Paradies”
instead of “Paradise” in the title also seems to suggest this work symbolizes the remnants of today’s
consumer society.

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FUJI Hiroshi Happy Paradies 2015
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable © FUJI Hiroshi photo: KIOKU Keizo

Design Gallery

SUPERFLEXThe Fermentation Act, 2016
Jakob FENGER: Born in Roskilde, Denmark in 1968. Lives and works in Copenhagen.
Bjørnstjerne CHRISTIANSEN: Born in Copenhagen in 1969. Lives and works there.
Rasmus NIELSEN: Born in Jelling, Denmark in 1969. Lives and works in Copenhagen.
An artists’ group formed in 1993. SUPERFLEX has undertaken projects in Copenhagen and otherlocations around the world. Utilizing their command of various media, including graphic design,
video and architecture, they incorporate diverse perspectives in their projects, creating platforms forcommunity awareness of issues and relationships. Describing their works as “tools,” they regard
their exhibitions and projects as experimental spaces for stimulating the thinking of visitors.
In The Fermentation Act, the exhaled breath of visitors and moisture in the air is collected using adehumidifier and the resultant liquid, tea leaves and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast(SCOBY) combined to make kombucha, a fermented beverage, which are then stored. Later,
sheets of the copy paper used at the museum will be dyed using this liquid and dried at themuseum. The liquid then will evaporate inside the building and the kombucha copy paper will be
used on a daily basis, thereby finding new owners. This results in a circulatory process in which
moisture is reduced and paper used. Performing this series of tasks are not the artists but local
residents and visitors to the museum, who are encouraged to engage in various activities using
this “ tool.” The work embodies the studies under taken by 21st Centur y Museum ofContemporary Art, Kanazawa, into the kinds of relationships it can build with the local community
and represented in project form through the use of a tool our attempts to foster a community.
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SUPERFLEX The Fermentation Act 2016
Collection: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Dimensions variable © SUPERFLEX photo: KIOKU Keizo

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Images for
Publicity

Images 1–17 are available to the press from the Museum’ s Public Relations Office(press@kanazawa21.jp) based agreement to the following conditions.
< Conditions of Use >Photos must be reproduced with the credit and caption given.
Please refrain from cropping. During layout, please avoid laying type (caption or other) over the photo.
Please send proofs to the public relations office to verify information.
Please send a publication (paper), URL, DVD or CD to the museum for our archives,
afterwards.

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