2016.1.27

Yu Araki: Temple of the Templet
2016.2.26 Fri. – 4.3 Sun.
Art Gallery 1, Café Ogurayama

Yokohama Museum of Art

Concept sketch for Temple of the Templet, 2015, digital collage

Yokohama Museum of Art has been organizing “New Artist Picks (NAP),” an annual exhibition held at the art gallery andCafé Ogurayama that showcases young artists with promising careers ahead. For this year ’s installment, the exhibition
will be featuring works by artist Yu Araki.
Araki was born in Yamagata prefecture in 1985. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with a degreein sculpture in 2007, he completed the master’s program at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo
University of the Arts in 2010. Araki has traveled extensively to various locations in Asia and the West including South
Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, France, Spain, and Iceland. Based on the local history and culinary culture that heencountered during his visits, Araki has created videos which bring together historical fact and his personal past.
The exhibition will be presenting a new video installation by the artist which explores the theme of “authenticity,” takingas its subject the Parthenon which exists both in America’s southern regional city of Nashville and Greece’s capital
Athens. Nashville, where Araki spent his adolescence, is known for its full-scale replica of the Parthenon. Nashville’sParthenon was built for the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition in 1897 under the influence of
Neoclassicism that was, at the time, taking the Western world by storm. 100 years later, it became the venue for theexhibition in which Araki presented his work for the first time.
For Araki, Nashville is tied to his relationship with his American family which he lived with for an extended period andalso his memories of discrimination and prejudice against Asians that he experienced during his self-forming years.
Amidst facing challenges that could not easily be overcome, such as his struggles of adapting to a foreign culture andfacing the limitations of language, Nashville was also the place where the artist rediscovered the possibilities of art. For
this work, Araki will begin his journey from Nashville’s Parthenon and make his way to the original Greek temple inAthens with the question of what determines authenticity. Here, essential themes for the artist such as “original andreproduction,” “dissemination and mistranslation,” and “East and West” are woven together with the extensive history
surrounding the Parthenon and presented as a single narrative.
A related exhibition at Café Ogurayama and an artist talk will be held in conjunction with the main exhibition during theprogram. We hope you take this opportunity to view the work of this emerging artist.

Artist Profile
Yu Araki (Born in 1985, Yamagata prefecture)
Araki is an artist and filmmaker. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louiswith a degree in sculpture in 2007, he completed the master’s program at the Graduate
School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2010.
His recent solo exhibitions include “WRONG TRANSLATION” The Container, Tokyo(2014), “MOTHERLANDS” JIKKA, Tokyo (2014), and group exhibitions “YABU NO
NAKA” Galerie Aube, Kyoto University of Art and Design (2015), and “PALAIS DE
KYOTO / NOTHING BUT SOUNDS” ARTZONE, Kyoto (2015). Araki has shown ininternational film festivals such as “the 59th BFI London Film Festival” (2015), and he alsoworks as an interpreter in the arts field.

©Yu Araki

EventArtist Talk
Date： February 27 (Sat.), 2016
Venue： Art Gallery ２

16:30～17:30

Searching the Original（tentative）, 2016, HD video

OutlineDateFebruary 26 (Fri.) – April 3 (Sun.), 2016

Venue

Yokohama Museum of Art:
Art Gallery 1, Café Ogurayama

Admission

FreeOpen Hours

Art Gallery 1, 11：00～18：00
Café Ogurayama, 10：45～18:00（admission until 17:45）

ClosedThursdays
Penelope's Hand, 2015, HD video

Organized by Yokohama Museum of Art (Yokohama Arts Foundation)
Grant from THE ASAHI SHIMBUN FOUNDATIONIn Cooperation with Café Ogurayama, SNEHTA RESIDENCY

Yokohama Museum of Art
3-4-1, Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 220-0012
TEL：+81(0)45-221-0300
FAX：+81(0)45-221-0317
http://yokohama.art.museum

Penelope's Hand, 2015, HD video

Contact

Public Relations Yokohama Museum of Art (Ms.Miyano, Ms.Fujii, Ms.Kubota, Ms.Kudo)

Tel. +81(0)45-221-0319 Fax. +81(0)45-221-0317 Email: pr-yma@yaf.or.jp