PRESS RELEASE

2021.04.13

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History andCulture are carrying out this exhibition as part of the Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL.

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

MOT Annual 2021
A sea, a living room and a skull
July 17 (Sat) – October 17 (Sun), 2021
The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo’s MOT Annual is an exhibition series held since 1999 tointroduce the new current of contemporary art in Japan through the work of young artists. MOT Annual
2021: A sea, a living room and a skull will expand its scope and present artists from various cultural
backgrounds in order to introduce artistic practices that resonate with one other and reflect on our time
experiencing an unprecedented global pandemic.
Numerous social implications of the public health crisis, such as tighter administrative control overindividuals and growing stigmas and divisions among people remind us that the body is fundamentallya political domain, constantly entangled with and affected by external forces and entities. The artists
introduced in this exhibition, Ishu Han, Daisuke Kosugi, and Maya Watanabe, utilize moving image as
their primary medium and capture bodies, or their absence, in specific situations and landscapes in order
to explore the negotiation and struggle between an individual and dominant social systems orideologies.
Ishu Han’s video work documents his seemingly impromptu performances in Aomori Prefecture, where
he moved from Shanghai as a child. His solitary gestures and actions made in natural landscapes rendervisible the ineffable inner experience of being an “other” and his in-between status as someone boundto two nation-states. Daisuke Kosugi presents A False Weight (2019), which depicts the struggle of hisfather’s disabled body in his domestic space within a standardized architecture, and a new work thatdelves into how traumatic flashbacks (PTSD) are experienced throughout body. Maya Watanabe has
been engaging with the memories and unresolved violence of the internal conflict that seized her
country, Peru, in the 1980s and 1990s. Three of her films are presented in this exhibition: Sceneries (2016),
Liminal (2019), and her new work Bullet (2021). They capture landscapes and bodies suspended in
between the past and present, witnessing the violence that continues to haunt Peruvian society.
These works—produced by engaging with the lives of individuals—grapple with the various forces thatpenetrate our existence and mediate our conduct, and explore the potential of restoring agency anddignity. Furthermore, the artists’ conceptual pursuit of moving image extends into the installations andthe rendering of the viewers’ audiovisual experience, giving insight into how we understand and embody
the idea of time and space. Through these artists’ explorations into immediate or distant terrains that
contour the conditions of their subjects, the exhibition invites a reflection on what mediates ourperspectives and subjecthood in contemporary society.

Artists
Daisuke Kosugi
Ishu Han
Maya WatanabeContact

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Public Relations Mihoko Nakajima / Chiako Kudo E-MAIL: mot-pr@mot-art.jp
TEL: +81-3-5245-1134
URL: https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en* All Programs are subject to change.

1Artists’ Biography
Daisuke Kosugi
Born 1984 in Tokyo, lives and works in Oslo. Incorporating performance, text, sound, and sculpture,
Kosugi utilizes video as his primary medium to produce work that focuses on dislocated subjectivity ina normalized social milieu. He often works closely with his family members and other individuals inorder to explore their inner lives, weighing the notion of real versus imaginary, probing theincommunicability of physical and mental pain, and questioning empathy.
Kosugi’s work has been exhibited widely in Norway and in various international institutions including
the Jeu de Paume in Paris, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, and the Amparo Museum inPuebla, Mexico. His work was exhibited at the 11th Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju, South Korea, and hehas been invited to a number of international film festivals and participated in artist-in-residency
programs in Europe. He is also a founding member of the artist initiative Louise Dany in Oslo.

1 Daisuke Kosugi, A False Weight, 2019

2 Daisuke Kosugi, All that goes before forget, 2021

Ishu Han
Born 1987 in Shanghai, lives and works in Tokyo. Han works in various mediums including video,
installation, photography, and performance to examine the subjective nature of identity and difference
as inscribed in the collective and the individual. Much of his work is derived from his personal
experiences, from moving to Japan as a child to his life in Tokyo today. Using objects, his own body, andthe bodies of others, he alludes to ideologies and societal norms inscribed in our gaze and our everyday
behavior. By utilizing a poetic visual language that is often laced with humor, his work provides animaginative sphere to negotiate those forces.
Han has participated in numerous exhibitions and residencies in the United States, the United Kingdom,
Australia, Taiwan, and China. In 2020, he was awarded the Nissan Art Award 2020 Grand Prix.

3 Ishu Han, return, 2011

4 Ishu Han, Wave Harvesting, 2021
Contact

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Public Relations Mihoko Nakajima / Chiako Kudo E-MAIL: mot-pr@mot-art.jp
TEL: +81-3-5245-1134
URL: https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en* All Programs are subject to change.

2

Maya Watanabe
Born 1983 in Lima, Peru. Lives and works in Amsterdam. Watanabe’s video installations captures themateriality of living things and its metamorphosis in microscopic yet abstract images, in order reflectupon the singularity of life and death. She also brings forth scenes and moments that conjure thepervading forces—be they natural or societal—that penetrate life, often beyond the limits of humanperception, imagination, and memory. In recent years, she has shed light on the political turmoil in Peru
in 1980s and 1990s, in an attempt to bear witness to the violence that continues to haunt Peruviansociety and its people.
Watanabe has exhibited her work in a number of countries and regions, including MAXXI - National
Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo inLima, the 7th Asian Art Biennial in Taichung City, Taiwan, and the 13th Havana Biennial. She has also
produced audiovisual set design for theaters. She was a resident at the Kyoto Art Center in 2017 andwas awarded the Han Nefkens Foundation – ARCO Madrid Video Art Production Award in 2018.

5 Maya Watanabe, Bullet, 2021
Produced by Multiverso with the support of Mondriaan
Fonds and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

6 Maya Watanabe, Sceneries II, 2016 Installation view
Image courtesy of Livia Benavides gallery

Information
Exhibition PeriodJuly 17 (Sat) – October 17 (Sun), 2021

ClosedMondays (except August 9, September 20), August 10, September 21

Opening Hours

10:00 - 18:00 (Tickets available until 30 minutes before closing.)

Admission

Adults – 1,300 yen / University & College Students, Over 65 – 900 yen / HighSchool & Junior High School Students – 500yen / Elementary School Students &Younger – Free

Venue

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Exhibition Gallery B2F

Organizers

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo operated by Tokyo Metropolitan Foundationfor History and Culture

SupportMondriaan Fonds, Office for Contemporary Art Norway

CuratorKyongfa Che (MOT)TEL+81-50-5541-8600(Hello Dial)

Concurrent Exhibitions“GENKYO YOKOO TADANORI”“MOT Collection”
Contact

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Public Relations Mihoko Nakajima / Chiako Kudo E-MAIL: mot-pr@mot-art.jp
TEL: +81-3-5245-1134
URL: https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en* All Programs are subject to change.

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IMAGE REQUEST FORM

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1

Daisuke Kosugi, A False Weight , 20192

Daisuke Kosugi, All that goes before forget, 2021

3

Ishu Han, return , 20114

Ishu Han, Wave Harvesting, 2021

5

Maya Watanabe, Bullet, 2021
Produced by Multiverso with the support of Mondriaan Fonds and the Museum ofContemporary Art Tokyo

6Maya Watanabe, Sceneries II , 2016

Installation viewImage courtesy of Livia Benavides galleryContact

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Public Relations Mihoko Nakajima / Chiako Kudo E-MAIL: mot-pr@mot-art.jp
TEL: +81-3-5245-1134
URL: https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en* All Programs are subject to change.

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