FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3rd Press Conference
Kyoto, Japan—September 30, 2014

PARASOPHIA: Kyoto International Festival ofContemporary Culture 2015
General composition of the exhibition andsecond round of artists

Press Inquiries
Parasophia Office (Public Relations: Akiko Onishi, Masako Taira)Phone: +81-75-257-1453 FAX: +81-75-257-1454
E-mail: press@parasophia.jp URL: www.parasophia.jp/en
645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANAAbout Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015
Artistic Director

Shinji Kohmoto

About the title“Parasophia” is a portmanteau word inspired by the lightly resonant sound of the termRpara, the femininity of the word sophia, and the mellifluous sound of the two linked together, as well as the visual image it evokes, of a molecular diagram of the benzene ringortho
in chemistry. Sophia refers to wisdom and the world of scholarship, and para is a prefixwith many meanings including “distinct from, opposite, opposing,” as in paradox, parameta
sol, parachute, paraphrase, paranoia, parameter, and so on. In the context of chemistry,
the term para also indicates a combining form designating the position straight acrosspara
the compound known as the benzene ring, the other basic positions being ortho andmeta.
The benzene ring brings to mind castle walls or magical barriers, as well as the history of Kyoto and thetransition of its urban structure. The city of Heian-kyō (present-day Kyoto) was established in 794 AD witha rectangular, grid-based structure modeled on that of Chang’an in China. In the 15th century, the civil
war known as the Ōnin War transformed Heian-kyō into a narrow irregular hexagon, elongated from northto south. Kyoto was not decimated, however, gradually recovering its vitality, and by the late 19th century
the city began to expand to the east and west, resulting in the hexagonal, benzene ring-like shape that
Kyoto has today. The structural diagram of the benzene ring is like a pictograph symbolizing the immortal
city of Kyoto itself.
Kyoto, a city that supports the arts
Kyoto is a city that has for centuries open-mindedly accepted and supported the activities of the mostinnovative artists and thinkers of the day, as it continues to do today. Over the years, the tolerant andwelcoming attitude toward the cultural avant-garde of each era, without fear or rejection of the unknown,
has been one of the grand traditions that makes Kyoto known throughout the world as a city of arts andculture.
Although the structure of Japanese society changed radically after World War II, Kyoto’s cultural facilities,
shrines and temples, and philanthropic benefactors have continued to support a diverse range of Japanese and international artists here in the city. This includes the large-scale contemporary art exhibitions
held at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art from the 1960s through the 1980s; the role of the Kyoto Prefectural Gallery in providing a forum for emerging artists; numerous gallery proprietors who worked withartists to present creative innovations to the public; the activities of the National Museum of Modern Art,
Kyoto, which in the late 1960s was the most forward-looking and radical of all of Japan’s national andpublic museums in supporting young artists by providing and maintaining exhibition venues; and Kyoto
Biennale 2003, which, although small in scale, sought to connect the city directly to the contemporary art
world at large. Over the years Kyoto has amassed a rich and wide-ranging legacy of support for contemporary culture.
Background of Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture’s establishment
The concept for the Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture came from people in the private
sector who dreamed of seeing a future Kyoto in which the city’s cultural assets, human resources, and richbackground in contemporary culture would be integrated along a common axis of deep respect for the“other” and openness to the unfamiliar, bringing together people of intellect and talent from many nations
to gather in Kyoto for a meeting of creative minds in which culture and knowledge would be exchanged
freely. The Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives turned this inspiration into a specific and realistic
proposal, and with generous support from Kyoto Prefecture, the City of Kyoto and the national Agency for
Cultural Affairs, the idea grew into a full-fledged, large-scale, private-sector-led international exhibition ofcontemporary art jointly implemented by the public and private sectors––a rarity in Japan. For the government to stay in a supporting role while the private sector assumes creative control of such an enterprise isa truly healthy and contemporary model for the administration of culture.
Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en1Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015
Around 40 intriguing artists from various countries will be invited to participate in the 2015 event.
Today, with many massive international art exhibitions featuring rosters of 100 to 200 artists being
held all over the world, Parasophia intentionally limits the number to 40 so as to mount an exhibitionof moderate size like that of the city of Kyoto itself. Parasophia places emphasis on offering eachartist sufficient exhibition space and thorough support, and aims to create a space that differs fromthe trendy extravaganzas that some international art exhibitions have become––a space for artists topause, think, and create among the people of the city, a Kyoto that lies in a “para” position. Parasophia
is another realm of the intellect, which lies across the divide. The name Parasophia alone adequately
encapsulates the unique character and color of this international exhibition.
The goals of Parasophia
Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 is a platform for thought andcreativity and a medium for their generation. The aim is not to be simply entertainment, a reconfirmation of what we already know and love, but to be a workshop of the mind that will give rise to thecultural assets of a decade hence. Its goal is to build the base for a sustainable international festivalof the arts that is deep and multilayered, at once a stimulating source of fun for the whole family and aforum for exchange of ideas among leading minds of the world.
(translated from the Japanese by Christopher Stephens)

Artistic Director

Mr. Shinji Kohmoto
Artistic Director, Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015
Former Chief Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Born in Kyoto. Completed the Master’s Program in Design at the Graduate School of Engineering and
Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology. Curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto since
1981; Chief Curator from 2006 to 2010.
Kohmoto was one of the four Artistic Directors of Yokohama 2001: International Triennale of Contemporary Art (2001), the first Yokohama Triennale, subtitled Mega-Wave—Towards a New Synthesis, withfellow artistic directors Nobuo Nakamura, Fumio Nanjo, and Akira Tatehata. He was also on the jury
for the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 50th International Art Exhibition of the Venice
Biennale (2003), and the selection committee for the artistic director of Documenta 12 (2007).
Exhibitions curated by Kohmoto include Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties (1989), a landmark presentation of contemporary Japanese Art that he co-curated with Kathy Halbreich, Thomas
Sokolowski, and Fumio Nanjo, which toured across the United States until 1991; Project for Survival(1996), a cutting-edge exhibition featuring seven artists and projects from the early 1970s to 1996, allunderrepresented in Japan up to that point, that deal with the ways an individual or an institution builds
relationships with and survives in contemporary society; and William Kentridge—What We See & What
We Know: Thinking About History While Walking, and Thus the Drawings Began to Move… (2009), oneof the biggest solo exhibitions of the artist’s work and the first in Japan, which was awarded for its
excellent curation.

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Information
Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 is the first large-scale exhibition of contemporary art to be held in Kyoto. Approximately 40 artists from around the world will participate in the two-month exhibition at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, the Museum of Kyoto, andother locations. Many of these artists will also have taken part in the 700 days before the exhibition,
making extended visits to Kyoto for site visits, collaborations, and other research for new works thatwill be presented at the first exhibition in 2015.
Title

Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015

Dates

Saturday, March 7–Sunday, May 10, 2015

Venues

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, The Museum of Kyoto, and other locations in Kyoto

Tickets

Adults: 1,800 JPY (advance tickets: 1,400 JPY)
University students/over 70: 1,200 JPY (advance tickets: 900 JPY)
* High school students and visitors under 18 will be admitted free of charge.
* Advance tickets are scheduled to go on sale in December 2014.

Artistic Director

Shinji Kohmoto (former Chief Curator, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto)

Presented by

Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture Organizing Committee, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives (Kyoto Keizai Doyukai), Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto City

With the cooperation of

Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto Saga University ofArts, Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Seian University of
Art and Design

Funded in partby grants from

Asahi Group Arts Foundation, The Asahi Shimbun Foundation, The Kao Foundation
for Arts and Sciences, Nissha Foundation for Printing Culture and Technology, Nomura
Foundation, Pola Art Foundation, Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2014

Under the auspices of

The Japan Foundation

Approved by

Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, Japan

With technicalsupport from

Ultra Factory, Kyoto University of Art and Design
Sandwich

Websitewww.parasophia.jp

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Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en3Organization
Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture Organizing Committee
Honorary
President

Princess Akiko of Mikasa

Chairman

Mr. Mikio Hase

Visiting Researcher, Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University
Art Researcher, Ginkaku Jisho-ji, Kenshu Dojo
Guest Research Fellow, Archival Research Center, Kyoto City University of Arts

Chairman, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives (Kyoto Keizai Doyukai)
President, Hase Building Group/Hase Honsha, K.K.

Committee Chairman Mikio Hase

Chairman, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives

Vice
Daisaku Kadokawa
Chairmen Keiji Yamada

Mayor of Kyoto City
Governor of Kyoto Prefecture

Council

Teiichi Aramaki
Hidenori Kouchi
Toshiyuki Masuda
Nobutaka Saiki
Masayuki Sasaki
Michikazu Shiraishi
Akira Tatehata

President, Kyoto Culture Foundation
Director-General, Kyoto Station, Japan Broadcasting Corporation
Chairman, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives
Director, The Japan Foundation Kyoto Office
Agency for Cultural Affairs
President, The Kyoto Shimbun Holdings Co., Ltd.
President, Kyoto Arts and Culture Foundation

Board

Hideyuki Hoshina
Masao Hosoo
Yoshihisa Ikuta
Takahiko Konishi

Advisors

Chairman, The Council of the Union of Kansai Governments
Yoshihisa Akiyama
Chairman, Kyoto Employers’ Association
Takao Ando
President, Kyoto Buddhist Association
Raitei Arima
Charles-Henri Brosseau Consulate General of France, Kyoto; Director, Institut français		   du Japon-Kansai
Shigehiko Hattori
Chairman, Kyoto Industrial Association
Yuki Ikenobo
Vice-Chairman, Origin of Ikebana Ikenobo
Kazuo Inamori
President, Inamori Foundation
Yasuo Kashihara
Chairman, Kyoto Tourism Federation; Chairman, Kyoto City Tourism Association
Jun-ichi Murata
President, Kyoto Convention Bureau
Genshitsu Sen
Daisosho, Urasenke
Shuji Takashina
Director, Ohara Museum of Art
Yoshio Tateisi
Chairman, Kyoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Marcus Wernhard
Director, Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa

Auditors

Tatsumi Fujii
Yukihiro Matsunaga

Managing Director, Kyoto Tourism Federation
Vice Chairman, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives
Superintendent of Education, Kyoto City Board of Education
Director General for Cultural Policy, Department of Culture andthe Environment, Kyoto Prefecture
Toshiaki Kouyama
Deputy Director, The Museum of Kyoto
Yoshito Naya
Chairman, Special Committee for the Kyoto International Festival ofContemporary Culture, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives
Tsutomu Odagaki
Superintendent, Kyoto Prefectural Board of Education
Hidehito Okada
Executive Director, Kyoto City Tourism Association
Misato Oku
Director General in charge of Cultural Arts, Kyoto City
Motoyoshi Shimoda Director, Kyoto Prefectural Center for Arts and Culture
Kozo Shioe
Director, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art
Uhee Wakabayashi Accounting Director, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives
Shigeru Yagi
Director/Secretary General, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives
Hideaki Yamauchi
Senior Executive Director, Kyoto Convention Bureau

Senior Executive Director, The Kyoto Bankers Association
Managing Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Kyoto(information as of Sept. 30, 2014)

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

FAX: +81-75-257-1454

URL: www.parasophia.jp/en4Professional Advisory Board*
Members

Ute Meta Bauer

Founding Director, Centre for Contemporary Art, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore

Roger M. Buergel

Founding Director, Johann Jacobs Museum, Zurich

Lynne Cooke

Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Chris Dercon

Director, Tate Modern, London

Toshiya Echizen

Professor, Doshisha University, Kyoto

Yukihiro Hirayoshi

Associate Professor, Museum and Archives, Kyoto Insititute of Technology

Tomoaki Ishihara

Professor, Department of Fine Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts

Masanobu Ito

Program Director, Visual Arts, Arts and Culture Department, The Japan Foundation, Tokyo

Yukie Kamiya

Chief Curator, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art

Keisuke Kitano

Professor, College of Image Arts and Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto

Vasif Kortun

Director of Research and Programs, SALT Online, Istanbul

Lisette Lagnado

Art Critic, São Paulo

Megumi Matsuo

Director, MATSUO MEGUMI+VOICE GALLERY pfs/w, Kyoto

Kiyotaka Moriwaki

Senior Curator, Kyoto Film Archive, The Museum of Kyoto

Seishi Namiki

Director, Museum and Archives, Kyoto Institute of Technology

Hiroto Oonogi

Vice-President, Kyoto University of Art and Design

Morihiro Satow

Dean of Faculty of Design, Kyoto Seika University

Kan Shimamoto

Dean of Faculty of Art, Kyoto Seika University

Sachiko Sugiura

Associate Professor, Department of Art Policy and Management, Musashino
Art University, Kodaira, Tokyo

Shinya Takahashi

Executive Officer, Mori Building Co., Ltd.; Adviser to the Director, Mori Art
Museum, Tokyo

Noboru Tsubaki

Director, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Faculty of Art and Design,
Kyoto University of Art and Design

Mayumi Yamamoto

Program Director, Kyoto Art Center

Akira Yoshino

Professor, Faculty of Arts, Kyoto Saga University of Arts

Hiroshi Yoshioka

Professor of Aesthetics and Theory of Arts, Kyoto University* The Professional Advisory Board consists of professionals who provide advice and support to the Artistic Director.

Parasophia Office
Artistic Director
CuratorExecutive Director
Vice Executive Directors

International Relations
Public Relations

Shinji Kohmoto
Yoshihiro Nakatani (Curator, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art)
Nobuyuki Ozaki
Hisato Imaoka (Deputy General Manager, Kyoto Association of Corporate Executives)
Hiroyuki Nishida (Co-Director, Cultural Policy Division, Department of Culture and theEnvironment, Kyoto Prefecture)
Tomoko Funase (Supervising Director, Culture and Arts Planning Section, Culture andArts City Promotion Office, Culture and Citizens Affairs Bureau, Kyoto City)
Yoshiko Isshiki
Akiko Onishi, Masako Taira

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

FAX: +81-75-257-1454

URL: www.parasophia.jp/en5Venues
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art

Opened in November 1933 as the second large-scale public museum in Japan, after the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum.
Director: Kozo Shioe
Architect: Kenjiro Maeda
Building completed: 1933
Total floor area: 9,349 m2
Address: 124 Okazaki Enshoji-cho,
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto (inside Okazaki Park)
Directions: 10 min. walk from Kyoto Municipal Subway Tōzai Line Higashiyama
Station (Station T10)
Photos by Kazuo Fukunaga

The Museum of Kyoto

Opened in 1988 as a comprehensive cultural facility that introduces the history and culture of Kyoto.
Director: Teiichi Aramaki
Address: Sanjo-Takakura, Nakagyo-ku,
Kyoto
Annex (former Bank of Japan Kyoto
Branch)* Important Cultural Property
Architects: Kingo Tatsuno & Uheji Nagano
Building completed: 1906
Total floor area: 2,269 m2
Directions: 3 min. walk east along Sanjō
St. from Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Oike Station (Karasuma Line Station K08/Tōzai Line Station T12) Exit 5

In addition to the above, there are plans to conduct studies with artists in locations such as the Horikawa Housing
Complex and the Kamo River, and explore possibilities for expanding the number of exhibition venues.

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en6Open Research Program
The Artistic Director and his curatorial team have been conducting part of their research for Parasophia: Kyoto International
Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 publicly, in the form of lectures and other events in the Open Research Program(hereinafter, ORP) since June 2013, inviting guests from the fields of art, film studies, architecture, literature, and more
to deliver lectures, dialogues, and a lecture/performance in front of full audiences. Brief reports on the Open Research
Programs presented thus far are available on Parasophia's website. More extensive records for selected Open Research
Programs are available as issues of the Parasophia Chronicle in PDF and EPUB formats.
ORP 01 [Lecture] Akira Mizuta Lippit“Like Cats and Dogs—Cinema and Catastrophe”
Annex Hall, The Museum of Kyoto
ORP 02 [Report] Koki Tanaka & Mika Kuraya“abstract speaking—participating in the Venice Biennale”
Doshisha University, Kyoto
ORP 03 [Lecture/Performance]
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster “M.2062 (Scarlett)”
Annex Hall, The Museum of Kyoto

Chris Dercon “Art + Architecture for the XXI Century:
Tate Modern” Photo by Rokuto Nonoshita

ORP 04 [Dialogue]
Cai Guo-Qiang in Conversation with Akira Asada
Kyoto University of Art and Design
ORP 05 [Lecture] Kazuyo Sejima
flowing KARASUMA, Kyoto
ORP 06/Prelude: Access Program [Narrative Generation]
Toh EnJoe “For The Refusal of Time”
Former Rissei Elementary School, Kyoto
ORP 07 [Lecture] Chris Dercon“Art + Architecture for the XXI Century: Tate Modern”
A collaborative project by Parasophia & Future Beauty
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Susan Philipsz “You Are Not Alone”
YonedaPhoto by Yuki

ORP 08 [Lecture] Susan Philipsz “You Are Not Alone”
Kyoto Art Center
ORP 09 [Lecture] Pipilotti Rist
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
ORP 10-1 [Lecture Series] Tatsuo Majima “Series Title Under
Consideration” (1) “Open and Close, Close and Open, Openand Fold, Fold and Unfold: (Two-Hour Lecture On) JapaneseModern and Contemporary Art”
flowing KARASUMA, Kyoto
ORP 10-2 [Lecture Series] Tatsuo Majima “Series Title Under
Consideration” (2) “To Whom Does Publicness Belong: (TwoHour Lecture On) Art Museums, International Exhibitions,Contemporary Art, and Art”
flowing KARASUMA, Kyoto

Pipilotti Rist

Photo by Anri Yanase

ORP 11 [Lecture] Ann Lislegaard
JFIC Sakura Hall, Tokyo
ORP 10-3 [Lecture Series] Tatsuo Majima “Series Title Under
Consideration” (3) “Buntenteitenkaisoteitenshinbuntennitteeen (Tentative), Beijing Diary, Kugenuma Sumo/Kyoto Boxing, Japanese Modern Art/The Cheerful Country: (Two-HourPresentation On) Works by Tatsuo Majima”
Wednesday, November 19, 2014 5:00–7:00 PM
Annex Hall, The Museum of Kyoto (in Japanese only)

Tatsuo Majima “Series Title Under Consideration” (1)“Open and Close, Close and Open, Open and Fold, Foldand Unfold: (Two-Hour Lecture On) Japanese Modern
and Contemporary Art”

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en7

List of participating artists as of September 2014
Lisa Anne Auerbach		b. 1967 in Ann Arbor, MI, USA; based in Los Angeles

Nairy Baghramian		b. 1971 in Isfahan, Iran; based in Berlin

Cai Guo-Qiang (蔡国强)b. 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China; based in New York

Joost Conijn			b. 1971 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; based in Amsterdam

Stan Douglas			b. 1960 in Vancouver, BC, Canada; based in Vancouver

Simon Fujiwara		

b. 1982 in London, England, UK; based in Berlin

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster b. 1965 in Strasbourg, France; based in Paris and Rio de Janeiro
Hoefner/Sachs		Franz Hoefner: b. 1970 in Starnberg, Germany; based in Berlin				Harry Sachs: b. 1974 in Stuttgart, Germany; based in Berlin

Emiko Kasahara (笠原恵実子)

b. 1963 in Tokyo, Japan; based in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Yoshimasa Ishibashi (石橋義正) b. 1968 in Kyoto, Japan; based in Kyoto
William Kentridge		b. 1955 in Johannesburg, South Africa; based in Johannesburg

Ann Lislegaard		

b. 1962 in Tønsberg, Norway; based in Copenhagen and New York

Tatsuo Majima (眞島竜男)

b. 1970 in Tokyo, Japan; based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture,				Japan and Beppu, Oita Prefecture, Japan

Aernout Mik			b. 1962 in Groningen, The Netherlands; based in Amsterdam

Susan Philipsz			b. 1965 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK; based in Berlin

Florian Pumhösl		b. 1971 in Vienna, Austria; based in Vienna

Pipilotti Rist			b. 1962 in Grabs, Switzerland; based in Zurich

Arin Rungjang (อรินทร์ รุ่งแจ้ง)b. 1975 in Bangkok, Thailand; based in Bangkok

Aki Sasamoto (笹本晃)		

Tadasu Takamine (高嶺格)Koki Tanaka (田中功起)		

b. 1980 in Yokohama, Japan; based in New Yorkb. 1968 in Kagoshima, Japan; based in Akita, Japanb. 1975 in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan; based in Los Angeles

Ana Torfs			

b. 1963 in Mortsel, Belgium; based in Brussels

Rosemarie Trockel		b. 1952 in Schwerte, Germany; based in Cologne

Danh Vo			b. 1975 in Bà Rịa, Vietnam

Hong-Kai Wang (王虹凱)

Miwa Yanagi (やなぎみわ)

b. 1971 in Huwei, Yunlin County, Taiwan; based in Vienna and Taipei
b. 1967 in Kobe, Japan; based in Kyoto(information as of Sept. 30, 2014; approx. 40 artists scheduled to participate in all)Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

FAX: +81-75-257-1454

URL: www.parasophia.jp/en8Participating artists as of September 2014

Lisa Anne Auerbach

Lisa Anne Auerbach originally studied photography, but during the 2004 UnitedStates presidential election she created a knitted message, and since then has produced a large number of knit works. In 2013, she produced the approximately 150
× 100 cm (60 × 39 in.) ultra-large-format zine American Megazine #1, containing
photographs of the characteristic architecture of megachurches in various locations
including California and Arizona. The second issue, which featured photographs ofpsychics, was exhibited this year at the 2014 Whitney Biennial. In addition to sympathizing intellectually with movements such as 1990s Riot Grrrl feminism, punk rockmusic, and homemade zines, Auerbach incorporates their ideals into the tactile fabricof day-to-day life. Starting with simple inspirations from her daily life, she employs
readymade materials and media available to individuals and insists on working withher own hands, producing works rich in playful critique that tread the borderline between ordinary and extraordinary.
Auerbach is planning the latest in the “Megazine” series, American Megazine #3,
for Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015. She isscheduled to come to Japan for the first time in October 2014 and do research forthe project in Kyoto.

b. 1967 in Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Based in Los Angeleswww.lisaanneauerbach.com
www.americanmegazine.com

Lisa Anne Auerbach, American Megazine#1, 2013. Ink on paper. Installation view
with mega-girls, Los Angeles Municipal Art
Gallery, 2013. Photo by the artist, courtesyof the artist and Gavlak. © Lisa Anne
Auerbach

Nairy Baghramianb. 1971 in Isfahan, Iran
Based in Berlin

Installation view of Nairy Baghramian, Fluffing the
Pillows, Kunsthalle Mannheim, 2012. Courtesy ofGalerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne

Cai Guo-Qiang(蔡国强)b. 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian
Province, China
Based in New Yorkwww.caiguoqiang.com

Nairy Baghramian has been based in Berlin since 1985. Solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle
Basel (2006), Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2008), Serpentine Gallery (London,
2010), Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery (2013), SculptureCenter (Long Island, NY,2013), the Art Institute of Chicago (2014), Serralves Museum (Porto, Portugal, 2014),
and many more. Many group exhibitions, primarily in Europe. She has participated ininternational exhibitions such as Skulptur Projekte Münster 07 (2007), the 5th Berlin
Biennale (2008), the 2011 Venice Biennale, and the 8th Berlin Biennale (2014). Baghramian’s formal, conceptual, and critical concerns, together with a deep understanding of the legacies of Modernism, Minimalism, design, and an interest in materials,
craft, and the process of making, lead to a heterogeneous sculptural practice, onethat is sensitive to the reality of contradictory or competing histories manifested ina variety of approaches to exhibition-making. Her work will be shown in Asia for the
first time at Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015.

Cai Guo-Qiang is internationally renowned for his dynamic, powerful style, characterized by his signature gunpowder drawings and explosion events. Cai lived in Japan
from 1986 to 1995, and in 1994, he presented Project for Heiankyō 1,200th Anniversary: Celebration from Chang’an in front of Kyoto City Hall. He then moved to New York,
where he has continued to create many works based on various aspects of traditional
Chinese culture, such as herbal medicine and feng shui, with his own unique spiritof criticism. His awards include the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999, theHiroshima Art Prize in 2007, and the Praemium Imperiale for Lifetime Achievement in
the Arts in 2012.
The artist has spent nearly a decade on his ongoing Peasant Da Vincis project, inwhich he collects pieces such as robots, submarines, and airplanes made by amateur
Installation view of Cai Guo-Qiang: Da Vincis do
Povo in the street outside Centro Cultural Banco do inventors using materials found in their everyday lives. These works are representaBrasil, São Paulo, 2013. Photo by Joana França
tions of the wildest imagination of Chinese peasants. Part of this project, along withthe spin-off project Children Da Vincis and further additions especially for Kyoto, will
form the core of Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture
2015.

Joost Conijn
b. 1971 in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
Based in Amsterdam
www.joostconijn.org

Still from Joost Conijn, Vliegtuig (Airplane), 2000.
Video, 29 min.

Studied at Gerrit Rietvield Academie (1992–95) and Sandberg Instituut (1995–97) in
the Netherlands. Seized by an urge to fly, Joost Conijn obtained a pilot license at theage of 27, and in 2000 made efforts to fly in the Sahara Desert in an aircraft he built byhand. In 2001–02, he traveled through 15 European countries, visiting Belgium, Germany, Moravia and other parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Transylvania
and elsewhere in Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, and elsewhere, in awooden car equipped with a charcoal-burning engine. In 2007 he bicycled across themountainous Rif region of northern Morocco with two friends. Conijn documents thesejourneys in film, photo, and text form and presents them as creative works. He expresses his curiosity and adventurous impulses by building his own vehicles, rather thanusing readymade forms of transportation, and by making his way across national andcultural boundaries freely and spontaneously rather than sticking to a preordained plan.
This approach encourages viewers to rethink our contemporary lifestyle of dependence
on a range of existing systems: surely a perfect example of Parasophia.

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en9Stan Douglas
b. 1960 in Vancouver, BC,
CanadaBased in Vancouver

Since the mid-1980s, Stan Douglas has researched actual incidents and events occurring in specific places, in order to create photographs, videos, and films that reconsider minor and forgotten histories. Douglas treads the line between documentaryand fiction, creating provocative and open-ended works that manifest themselves inways that artistic intention. His work has appeared in numerous international groupexhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1990, 2001, 2005) and Documenta (1992,
1997, 2002), and an exhibition of his recent work, Stan Douglas: Mise en scène istouring Europe until 2016.
Scheduled for exhibition at Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary
Culture 2015 is Douglas’s latest video installation, Luanda-Kinshasa (2014), set in areconstruction of Columbia Records’ legendary New York 30th Street studio (1949–
Installation view of Stan Douglas, Luanda-Kinshasa,81) nicknamed “The Church.” The work is set in 1974, the year that Portugal began to2013. Single-channel video projection, 6 hr. 1 min.
extricate from its African colonies such as Angola (Luanda) and Muhammad Ali and(loop), color, soundGeorge Foreman had their Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire (Kinshasa). Ten musicians
create music that is a synthesis of Miles Davis’s 1972 album On the Corner andAfrobeat of the era.

Simon Fujiwara

BA in Architecture, University of Cambridge, 2005. Studied Fine Art under Simon
Starling at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt. Simon Fujiwara won the Cartier Award at Frieze Art Fair in 2010. In 2012, Tate St. Ives presented
b. 1982 in London, England,a major survey exhibition of his work. Fujiwara is especially known for installations
UKwith rich narratives based on his personal autobiography and his family’s history,
Based in Berlin
indistinguishably blurring the lines between meticulously researched fact and fiction.
By taking on the form of artworks, his personal narratives become loosely connectedwith the narratives of countless other individuals, and gradually transform as theyreach out beyond the artist himself.
Still from Simon Fujiwara, Studio Pietà (King Kong
Komplex), 2013. Mixed media installation with video, Fujiwara’s participation in Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary
20 min. 30 sec.
Culture 2015 will feature Welcome to the Imperial Bar. The Year is 1968, the Time is 8
O’clock, the Drink is Mount Fuji. Please Enjoy Because Soon This Will All Be Gone…
(2013), an installation composed of reproduced fragments of the Frank Lloyd Wrightbuilding of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, where Fujiwara’s parents first met before its
demolition in 1968, combined with part of Studio Pietà (King Kong Komplex) (2013)
and other elements to present a more universal “index” of the themes of identity andsexuality.

DominiqueGonzalez-Foerster
b. 1965 in Strasbourg, France
Based in Paris and Rio deJaneirowww.dgf5.com

Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival ofContemporary Culture 2015 Open Research
Program 03 [Lecture/Performance] Dominique
Gonzalez-Foerster “M.2062 (Scarlett),” Annex, The
Museum of Kyoto, September 6, 2013. Photo by
Tadashi Hayashi

In the late 1980s, after studying at the École du Magasin of the National Center ofContemporary Art in Grenoble, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster began creating a series
of installations that she refers to as her “Rooms.” These works combine elements
such as video, light, sound, and furniture to stimulate the viewer’s memories throughtheir senses, and transform rooms into spaces with rich narratives that can almost be
described as books in room form. Important aspects of her work include the relationship between the physical and psychological elements that result from the processof creating situational works, as well as the participation of others in these situational
works themselves. For these reasons, her works have been described as “relationalart.” More recently, Gonzalez-Foerster has been creating works that present deep,
tranquil contemplations of the complexly interwoven relationship between images
and fiction in cinema, text, books, and language. In 2012, she began working on
M.2062, her “opera under construction,” where the artist appears as different characters and personas and delivers lecture/performances using text and music. M.2062(Scarlett), presented in September 2013, can be described as a study for Parasophia:
Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015.

Hoefner/Sachs

Hoefner/Sachs is Franz Hoefner and Harry Sachs, an artist duo from Berlin that turns issues related to urban architecture and housing into projects and performances throughartistic means imbued with a sharp, crazy sense of humor. Many of their works callFranz Hoefner
the architectural border between “housing units” as mere shelters and “homes” forb. 1970 in Starnberg, Germany
long-term inhabitation into question. One example is their Honey Neustadt project
Based in Berlin
from 2006, where the artists made miniature housing units out of Styrofoam beehive
Harry Sachs
frames, modeled after the prefabricated working-class housing developments foundb. 1974 in Stuttgart, Germanyin Halle-Neustadt, a commuter town for chemical plant workers built to the west of
Based in Berlin
Halle in the former East Germany from the 1960s to the late 1980s. The artists built abee colony out of these Styrofoam tower block models as a home for the swarm of amillion honeybees that emerged in Berlin at that time. The honey collected from Honey
Hoefner/Sachs, Real Restate, 2011. © Hoefner/Sachs
Neustadt was packaged and sold as both products and artworks.
For Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Hoefner/
Sachs are currently working on plans for a new project involving a study of the city of
Kyoto.

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Yoshimasa
Ishibashi(石橋義正)

Yoshimasa Ishibashi studied filmmaking at the Royal College of Art in London as an
exchange student from the Kyoto City University of Arts Graduate School’s Concept
and Media Planning Course. His films include I Wanna Drive You Insane (Kuruwasetaino; 1997), which was widely acclaimed for being a “high-quality B-class film,” andMilocrorze: A Love Story (2011), a feature film starring Takayuki Yamada in three different roles. Outside of Japan and as a director, he is perhaps best known for his surreal
comedy sketches featuring “The Fuccons.” Ishibashi is also the leader of the Kyoto-based artist collective Kyupi Kyupi, who bring together art, music, and video in theirartworks and performances. Since their participation in the group exhibition Visions of
the Body (Kyoto, 1999), Kyupi Kyupi have been invited to show their multidisciplinaryand extremely vibrant, radical works in museums and international exhibitions aroundthe world. Ishibashi’s latest project, MatchAtria (a collaboration with the dancer andchoreographer Yui Kawaguchi), was presented at the Kyoto Art Center in April 2014
after premiering and touring in Europe.
In advance of his participation in Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Ishibashi has spoken about his work for a study group and has
made a promotional video especially for Parasophia.

b. 1968 in Kyoto, Japan
Based in Kyoto
www.ishi-pro.com
Milocrorze: A Love Story, 2011. Directed,
written, produced, and edited by Yoshimasa
Ishibashi. © Milocrorze Project

Emiko Kasahara(笠原恵実子)b. 1963 in Tokyo, Japan
Based in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japanwww.emikokasahara.com

After earning an MFA from Tama Art University in Tokyo, Emiko Kasahara was basedin New York City from 1995 to 2014. She has shown work in major international exhibitions and group shows around the world, including Art in Japan Today 1985–1995(Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 1995), Yokohama Triennale 2001, and the 14th
Biennale of Sydney (2004). Working with materials that are simultaneously inorganicand evocative of feminine textures, such as marble, silicone, and synthetic hair, Kasahara creates works that capture the world with a sober yet sensitive eye. In 2000,
she began the project Offering, in which she visited Christian churches in 85 countries
throughout the world and photographed offertory boxes, and has ultimately taken
shape as an installation of these photographs and her sculptures based on them.
The installation has been shown at the Folk Life Museum (Graz, Austria, 2005) and
Emiko Kasahara, Double Urinal, 1994. Marble, water,
Yokohama Triennale 2014. For over 10 years, Kasahara has carefully documented herbleachresearch and visualized the process of making objects that emerged from it, which
ultimately resulted in a group of photographic and sculptural works. Attempting tocollect, display, and engage in acts that might alter artifacts rooted in Western systems and dualistic thought, she explores the potential of various interpretations andpropositions that arise from this sustained practice.

William Kentridge
b. 1955 in Johannesburg,
South Africa
Based in Johannesburg

Installation view of Parasophia: Kyoto International
Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 Prelude[Exhibition] William Kentridge: The Refusal of Time.
Photo by Kunihiro Shikata

William Kentridge has won recognition around the world with his “drawings in motion,”or hand-drawn animated films made by photographing drawings frame by frame. He
is active in many fields, directing puppet theaters, operas, and other productions,acting, writing, and more. In recent years, Kentridge has been making more works
that involve many collaborators and other participants, but the animations made withvast amounts of thought and handwork in his studio and the artist’s own physical wayof thinking remain the basis of his works. The artist contemplates the situation of his
homeland, South Africa, with his own studio as his starting point. With the knowledge
and technical history of modern Europe as his guide, Kentridge examines universal
problems faced by mankind and transforms them into visual art.
Kentridge also has strong ties with the city of Kyoto, with a history including a major
solo exhibition that opened at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto in 2009
and traveled to Tokyo and Hiroshima in 2010, and the 2010 Kyoto Prize in Arts andPhilosophy, of which he is the youngest laureate to date. His epic video installationcommissioned for Documenta 13, The Refusal of Time (2012), was shown for the firsttime in Asia from February to March 2014 as a prelude to Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015.

Ann Lislegaard

Ann Lislegaard is known for 3D film animations and sound-light installations often
departing from ideas found in science fiction novels such as Dhalgren by SamuelR. Delany and The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. She finds in scienceb. 1962 in Tønsberg, Norway
fiction an alternative approach to language, narration, gender roles, sexuality, andBased in Copenhagen andconcepts of the future.
New York
Her Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard) (2006) is set in a hotel that is slowly crystallizing.
lislegaard.com
As the animation moves through the architecture, one encounters furniture by thefemale architect Lina Bo Bardi, Robert Smithson’s sculpture The Dead Tree, and Eva
Hesse’s Untitled (Rope Piece). These “virtual replicants” are re-activated in the animation as provisional characters in a setting where time itself is ruined.
In Oracles, Owls… Some Animals Never Sleep (2012–14), which draws on Philip K.
Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a computer-animated owl delivers amonologue of aphorisms and latent fragments that consist of prophecies from I Ching
and a feminist speaking in tongues. The monologues are interrupted by squeaks ofcompressed noise, dramatized and distorted samples from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Although it is at times menacing, it is also humorous, a doubled and redoubled
self, with its unsynchronized dancing and trance-like movements.
Ann Lislegaard, Oracles, Owls… Some Animals
Lislegaard has participated in the 2005 Venice Biennale, the 2006 São Paulo BienNever Sleep, 2012–14. Double-channel 3D animation
nale, the 2013 Lyon Biennale, and the 2014 Biennale of Sydney. Solo exhibitions
with sound. Still from animation shown at the 19th
Biennale of Sydney, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and include shows at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Oslo, 2007) and the
Murray Guy Gallery, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2009).

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Tatsuo Majima(眞島竜男)

Tatsuo Majima studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London. In thevideo piece he made shortly after returning from London, Japanese Modern Art/The
Cheerful Country (1995), four Japanese painters from the 1930s get together outdoors for a barbecue and wine and engage in an imaginary conversation. This prob. 1970 in Tokyo, Japancess of creating imaginary scenarios with Japanese painters from the modern age,
Based in Kawasaki, Kanagabased on extensive research, can also be seen in works such as Beijing Diary (2010)wa Prefecture, Japan andand Kugenuma Sumo/Kyoto Boxing (first performed in 2010). Starting from around
Beppu, Oita Prefecture,
the year 2010, Majima has been delivering an increasing number of lectures andJapanperformances such as Dance of the Day (2012–13).
The four themes presented in his lecture series for Parasophia’s Open Research Program—(1) Japanese modern and contemporary art, (2) art and publicness, (3) Tatsuo
Tatsuo Majima, Kugenuma Sumo/Kyoto Boxing, 2010.
Installation view at TARO NASU, 2010. Photo by Keizo Majima, and (4) Kyoto (tentative)—will ultimately tie into Majima’s work for ParasoKioku, courtesy of TARO NASU. © Tatsuo Majima
phia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 in some way.

Aernout Mik

Aernout Mik has had large-scale solo exhibitions at the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven,2000), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London, 2000), the Museum of Modern Art(New York, 2009), and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2013). He represented theNetherlands at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and has participated in many international
exhibitions around the world. He has also participated in several exhibitions in Japan,
including Still/Moving (Kyoto, 2000), Yokohama Triennale 2001, and Aichi Triennale
2013. Mik’s works often consist of silent multi-channel videos with actors performing
scenarios based on real social issues, projected in architectural settings that merge
the viewer’s physical space with the space in the videos before them, thus making
the theatrical performance in the video more of a real experience than seeing actual
documentary footage.

b. 1962 in Groningen, The
Netherlands
Based in Amsterdam

Still from Aernout Mik, Touch, riseand fall, 2008. Video installation.
Courtesy of the artist and carlier| gebauer

Susan Philipsz
b. 1965 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Based in Berlinwww.susanphilipszyouarenotalone.
com

Susan Philipsz, The Distant Sound, 2014.
Three-channel sound installation. Installation view,
Moss, Norway, 2014. Photo by Eoghan McTigue.
© Susan Philipsz

Florian Pumhösl
b. 1971 in Vienna, Austria
Based in Vienna

Installation view, Florian Pumhösl at Miguel Abreu
Gallery, New York, 2014

Susan Philipsz’s early works use her own voice, singing folk songs and pop songs,
as their only source of sound (or instrument), coming from a simple composition of
speakers. Her works are often installed in public places, such as bus stops, underneath bridges, and in supermarkets, where ambient sound is prominent. The songs
selected according to the location of the works frequently embody specific sociopolitical messages, but Philipsz’s gentle voice does not merely convey the messageof the songs’ lyrics but also strongly evokes the audience’s own personal memories
and emotions, and brings forth recognition of the memories of the place where they
are listening to each work. Although her works are commonly described as soundinstallations, they can also be described as sculptures that use sound as a medium
for articulating time and space. Since winning the Turner Prize in 2010, Philipsz has
participated in Documenta 13 (2012), Manifesta 10 (2014), Sapporo International Art
Festival 2014, and more.
At Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Philipsz
will be presenting The Internationale (1999) and a new work based on her researchin Kyoto.

Florian Pumhösl has participated in many international exhibitions, including the2001 Yokohama Triennale and Documenta 12 (2007). He creates paintings, films, andinstallations that are not only based on thorough research of specific examples ofmodern avant-garde art, graphic design, typography, and architecture, but in certain
cases also visualize his research and analysis. Pumhösl’s research is characterized byhis perspective as an artist, rather than a historian, with his focus on his involvementwith his subjects’ visual language and their transition rather than tracing back their
origins. His solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery in London (2008) consisted of a historicalcomponent, with actual books designed by the Japanese artist Koshiro Onchi in the
1930s in wall-mounted display cases, and Pumhösl’s paintings made of synthetic
resin on glass plates, based on his highly focused studies of Onchi’s books and theirformal elements.
Pumhösl visited Japan in the spring of 2014 to perform further research on Onchi,
as well as Tomoyoshi Murayama of the Mavo group and other Japanese avant-garde
artists active in the 1920s–30s. Currently he is developing ideas for a new series ofworks based on this research for Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, which will be accompanied by a historical exhibit curated byPumhösl himself in dialogue with local experts.

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en12Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist entered the field of media art after studying at the Institute of Applied
Arts in Vienna and the Basel School of Design and working in stage design for musicgroups. Especially in her earlier works, Rist uses the clichés imposed on women byb. 1962 in Grabs, Switzerland
our male-dominated society to expose their stereotypes and to affirm the negative
Based in Zurich
aspects of femininity, creating works that provide strong encouragement for women.
www.pipilottirist.net
These works culminated in her video installation Ever is Over All, for which she wasawarded the Premio 2000 Prize at the Venice Biennale (the work was shown for the
first time in Japan in the Visions of the Body exhibition in 1999 at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). Many of her recent works are large video installations that
include furniture and daily objects as actual components, and her interest in exploring
the principle of visual perception through abstract and decorative means and her
Pipilotti Rist, Mercy Garden Retour Skin, 2014. Audio
video installation. Photo inspired by Yuji, courtesy of focus on rich colors have grown sharper than ever over the years. Rist has stated inmany interviews that “[she is] merely giving color back to the world, coming close to
the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Luhring Augustine
reality” (ART iT, 2009).
In April 2014, Rist traveled to Japan to do research for Parasophia: Kyoto International
Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, and delivered a lecture at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto as part of the Open Research Program.

Arin Rungjang(อรินทร์ รุ่งแจ้ง)Arin Rungjang studied Graphic Arts at the Silpakorn University in Bangkok (BFA,
2002), and has participated in exchange programs and artist-in-residence programsin Paris, the Philippines, Taipei, London, Antwerp, and New York. Finalist, Signature
Art Prize 2014 (winner to be announced in November 2014).
b. 1975 in Bangkok, Thailand
In 2013, Rungjang was one of two artists representing Thailand at the Venice BienBased in Bangkok
nale, where he showed Golden Teardrop (2013), a work composed of a video andan intricate sculptural installation of teardrop-shaped brass. Loosely but carefully,
Golden Teardrop layers the history of the sugar trade and personal narratives of Thai,
Greek, Portuguese, and Japanese individuals in the fifteenth, seventeenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, with the traditional Thai egg-yolk dessert thong yod(literally, golden drops) as the starting point, presenting a reexamination of collective
Installation view of Arin Rungjang, Golden Tearhistories and memories and their formation.
drop, 2013. Video installation. Photo by Kornkrit
Jianpinidnan, courtesy of the artist and the Office of Rungjang visited Kyoto in June 2014 to begin working on a new video installation forContemporary Art and Culture, Thailand
Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015. The work will
be accompanied by an updated installation of Golden Teardrop, which will be shownfor the first time in Japan.

Aki Sasamoto(笹本晃)

b. 1980 in Yokohama, Japan
Based in New Yorkwww.akisasamoto.com

Performance still from Aki Sasamoto, Skewed Lies,
Kyoto, 2014. Photo by Kahoru Tachi

Aki Sasamoto left her high school in Japan and went on to study mathematics, dance,
art, and sculpture as an undergraduate and graduate student in the UK and the US,
completing the MFA program at Columbia University. She creates many works thatinvolve the interplay between performances and installations, delivering improvisational performances in sculpturally defined spaces using her own body movements
and dance, words, objects, and more. Although her works are ostensibly improvisational, with their inspirations in events and actions in her daily life, they are in fact very
carefully constructed, weaving together the stillness of installations and the motionof performance to create complex, labyrinthine spatial narratives. Group exhibitions
include Yokohama Triennale 2008, the 2010 Whitney Biennial, the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012), and Roppongi Crossing 2013 (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo). In 2014, Sasamoto presented Sunny in the Furnace at The Kitchen, an alternative space for art andperformance in New York.
Also in 2014, Sasamoto visited Kyoto to study the physical movements, working environments, and industrial background of Nishijin weavers, metalsmiths, and Buddhist altar and altar article craftsmen. This research will be integrated as visual andconceptual elements into her new work for Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival ofContemporary Culture 2015.

Tadasu Takamine(高嶺格)

Tadasu Takamine began performing with multimedia/performance collective DumbType while still a student at Kyoto City University of Arts, and took part in three performance pieces including S/N. Currently he works in diverse media such as installations
incorporating video and audio, photography, video, sculpture, and self-directed perb. 1968 in Kagoshima, Japan
formances in which he appears. For A Lover from Korea (2003), drawing inspiration
Based in Akita, Japan
from his relationship with an ethnic Korean resident of Japan, he took up residence
in the Tamba Manganese Memorial, the site of a former mine where Koreans wereforced to labor, while producing the work. For Kagoshima Esperanto (2005), he filled aspace with soil and discarded objects and projected text in the dialect of Kagoshima
and the international language Esperanto on to it. In Japan Syndrome – Berlin Version
Tadasu Takamine, Japan Syndrome – Berlin Version, (2013), he transformed an area in front of Kyoto City Hall into a pulsating dance floor,
2013. Public viewing (video + performance) at Kyoto with 1,000 viewers participating. These and other pieces blend incisive social critique
City Hall Plaza. Photo by Tetsuya Hayashiguchiwith physicality and humor, with Takamine consistently investing his own physicalpresence and humanity’s flesh-and-blood nature in works that lay bare shared but
unspoken taboos and our complicity in them. In September 2014, Takamine staged
a new performance piece in Kyoto representing the final chapter in the Japan Syndrome project he launched in 2011.

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Koki Tanaka(田中功起)

b. 1975 in Mashiko, Tochigi
Prefecture, Japan
Based in Los Angeleswww.kktnk.com

Group exhibitions include the 2006 Taipei Biennial, the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008),
Reading Cinema, Finding Words (The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and The
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2013–14), Journal (ICA, London, 2014), Positions (Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 2014), and many others. Tanaka represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 2013, where the Japan Pavilion wasgiven a Special Mention. He has also been selected as the Deutsche Bank Group’s
2015 “Artist of the Year.” Tanaka records and edits documentary footage of his projects to create video works that express his ongoing contemplation of various issuesof memory and documentation, such as the difference between actually experiencing
an event and seeing it on video, or the gap between an event and its documentation
Koki Tanaka, a behavioral statement (or an
unconscious protest), 2013. Installation view inthat emerges from the process of editing.
the Japan Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale
For Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Tanaka
International Exhibition of Art, 2013. Photo by Keizo
will be presenting a new work that he will be creating in Kyoto.
Kioku, courtesy of the Japan Foundation

Ana Torfs
b. 1963 in Mortsel, Belgium
Based in Brussels
www.anatorfs.com

Detail from Ana Torfs, Family Plot, 2009–10.
© photo: Ana Torfs

Ana Torfs has a master’s degree in communication sciences from KU Leuven, andcompleted a master’s program in film and video at the Sint-Lukas University Collegeof Art and Design in Brussels. She works in a wide range of media, including video,
prints, slide projection, film, sound, photography, silkscreen, and tapestries. The relation or tension between text/language and image plays a central role in her work, andwith it all the related processes of representation, interpretation, and translation. She
enables a topical and authentic perception of the scattered remains of our culturaland political history. Existing texts and/or images are often used as a starting point for
her works, which condense into precisely composed collages or montages, suffusedwith elliptical allusions. In the past years Torfs had solo exhibitions in K21, Düsseldorf
Generali Foundation, Vienna (Album/Tracks A+B, 2010) and in Wiels, Brussels (Echolalia, 2014). She recently participated in major group exhibitions such as Manifesta 9(Genk, Belgium, 2012), the 11th Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates, 2013), The
Way of the Shovel at MCA Chicago (2013), and the 1st Biennial of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia, 2014). In Japan, she was featured in Reading Cinema, Finding Words:
Art After Marcel Broodthaers, which traveled to the National Museum of Modern Art,
Kyoto (2013) and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2014).
In Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, Torfs will
present Family Plot (2009–10), an installation which starts from her fascination withthe (official) Latin names of plants.

Rosemarie Trockel

Professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 1998. Rosemarie Trockel studied at
the Werkkunstschule art academy in Cologne. She has worked extensively in a wide
range of media including art objects made of ceramic and bronze, photo collage, vidb. 1952 in Schwerte, Germany
eo montage, and drawing on the body. In the late 1980s, Trockel had gained internaBased in Cologne
tional prominence for machine-knitted wool “paintings” that appropriated and maderepeated patterns out of existing logos and trademarks, and since the 1990s, she has
been featured in numerous exhibitions, primarily in Europe and the United States, andhas consistently been recognized as one of the leading female contemporary artists.
In 1999, Trockel became the first female artist to represent Germany at the Venice
Biennale. Deriving inspiration from fields such as natural history, zoology, botany, andmineralogy, she has emphasized both aesthetic expression and the processes that go
Installation view of Rosemarie Trockel, As far as
into its realization. In A Cosmos, an exhibition that toured Spain, the United States,
possible, 2012. Mixed media (steel, plastic, fabric,
and Great Britain in 2012–13, Trockel drew viewers into her unique worldview withmechanic birds, glass, audio; ceramic; tiles; plastic;
works that intentionally showed the internalized influences of works by other artists
digital print). Courtesy of Sprüth Magers
that have inspired her.
At Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, she will
exhibit her installation work As far as possible, which consists of an entire room thatwas part of A Cosmos, enveloping the viewer in her distinctive, highly original aesthetic realm.

Danh Vob. 1975 in Bà Rịa, Vietnam

Grew up in Denmark. Studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and
the Städelschule in Frankfurt. He was awarded the Hugo Boss Prize in 2012. He has
had many solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the USA since 2006, with exhibitions in Nottingham, New York, and Beijing in 2014 alone. He has also curated several
exhibitions in Europe, including a solo exhibition for Felix Gonzalez-Torres (2010). Vo
has participated in many group exhibitions, including international exhibitions such
as Manifesta 7 (2008), the Yokohama Triennale (2008 and 2014), the Berlin Biennale(2010 and 2014), the 2010 Gwangju Biennale, the 2011 Singapore Biennale, and the2013 Venice Biennale. His work is included in public collections around the world,
and in June 2014, the Danish Arts Foundation announced that Vo will be representing
Denmark at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Danh Vo, Tombstone for Phùng Vo, 2010. BlackVo has been invited to create a new work for Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival
absolute granite, gold. T.B. Walker Acquisition
Fund, 2011. Installation view, Minneapolis Sculpture of Contemporary Culture 2015.
Garden, Walker Art Center, January 3, 2013

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

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Hong-Kai Wang
(王虹凱)

b. 1971 in Huwei, Yunlin
County, Taiwan
Based in Vienna and Taipei
www.w-h-k.net

Hong-Kai Wang, Music While We Work, 2011. Production shot. Photo by Chen You-Wei

Miwa Yanagi(やなぎみわ)b. 1967 in Kobe, Japan
Based in Kyoto
www.yanagimiwa.net

Miwa Yanagi, stage truck for Nichirin no tsubasa,
2014. Photo by Shen Chao-Liang

Hong-Kai Wang is currently a PhD candidate at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
In 2011 she was one of the artists representing Taiwan at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting Music While We Work (2011), built around recordings of everyday labor madein a series of workshops by former workers of Taiwan Sugar Huwei Factory, part of
Huwei’s formerly thriving sugar industry built during Japanese ruling, and their family
members. In What’s the Musical Consequence of Change? (2013), twelve composers
were asked to create music studies based on a disjointed conversation they sharedon their experiences of crossing geopolitical border, while Oath of Love (2013) seeks
to explore the meaning of “local” and interrogate the visible/invisible border that defines it. Projects such as these are built on long-running conversations with otherpeople and patient, persistent collaborative labor. They are an incisive sociopoliticalanalysis and examination of the generation and dynamics of public spaces, of social
interrelations, and of the creation, saving and deletion of cultural memory. Wang’s
works are reports in the form of works of art, employing sound, video, performance,
workshops, and text as media.
For Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015, in addition to presenting Music While We Work, Wang is planning a new project based on
research in part conducted in Kyoto.

Miwa Yanagi came into the limelight around the middle of the 1990s with works about
women living in contemporary Japanese society, such as her series of photographsof “elevator girls,” or young women in uniform who operate elevators in Japanese
department stores. One of her earliest works was a performance featuring elevator
girls, and the theatrical aspect of her photographs and video pieces always remained
a key element of her works. In recent years, Yanagi’s attention has been focused ontheater, starting with her 1924 trilogy (2011–12) of plays about the Tsukiji Shōgekijō,or Japan’s first modern theater. Her play about an anonymous voice as a medium,
Zero Hour: Tokyo Rose’s Last Tape (Kanagawa Arts Theatre, Aichi Arts Center [Aichi
Triennale 2013]), will be performed in the United States in January and February 2015.
Yanagi has created a Taiwanese-style stage truck for her new theatrical piece in themaking, a dramatization of Kenji Nakagami’s novel Nichirin no tsubasa [The Wing of
the Sun] (1984). The stage truck has been presented as part of Yokohama Triennale
2014, after which she will be bringing it to Kyoto for Parasophia: Kyoto International
Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015. This project will be particularly innovative not
only for the stage truck but also for spanning two international exhibitions in a row.

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en15

Public Program
Public programs are being held on an irregular basis to offer broader public access to contemporary
art. As a prelude to the main event, William Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time was exhibited, and in February and March 2014 a series of programs explored related topics in depth from diverse perspectives,
including the history of film, philosophy, and physics.
Public programs held from April 2014 onward have primarily focused on the participating artists, with
program facilitators and participants approaching the artists and their works from various angles, andbuilding up to the actual exhibition by exploring a range of ways for participants to enjoy it.

Parasophia Conversations
Part of the mission of Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015 is to offer
platforms for diverse speakers to exchange in dialogues and present and exchange interpretations ofworks. The first of these Conversations will feature a free exchange of flexible and forward-looking
ideas with and among scholars active on the international stage.
Alexander Zahlten & Keisuke Kitano “Image Traffic in the 21st Century”
A multifaceted and multi-directional presentation and discussion on the circulation of images
in today’s society will be held. Rigid divisions between speakers and audience will be broken
down in this multi-channel talk event.
Coordinators/Moderators: Keisuke Kitano (Ritsumeikan University; Parasophia Professional
Advisory Board member), Alexander Zahlten (Harvard University)
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2014
Venue: TBA

Other topics
PPP
In the PPP (Parasophia Poster Project), Parasophia posters (designed by Tsutomu Nishioka) will be produced on
an ongoing basis from October onward, and mailed eachmonth to individuals or groups requesting them, who may
post them in a place of their choice. In a media-saturated climate where effortless dissemination of information
via social media and so forth has become the standard,
this project seeks to build a network of Parasophia relationships by having people proactively display posters,
an analog medium, over a six-month period. Participants
can apply online to receive posters.
Parasophia Volunteer Center
The Parasophia Volunteer Center has been established at
Kyoto Art Center. The Center is seeking volunteers who
can help support the exhibition behind the scenes.
www.paravol.jp
Parazine
Parazine is Parasophia’s semi-official free newspaper,
supported by a grant from the Nissha Foundation for
Printing Culture and Technology, and created and editedby Professional Advisory Board member Hiroshi Yoshioka(Professor of Aesthetics and Theory of Arts, Kyoto University) and student volunteers. Three issues have been
published up to this point. (In Japanese only.)

Parasophia co-presents “Allan Sekula: Between Photography and Text, Image and Geopolitics” (9th Research Presentation of the Association for Studies ofCulture and Representation)
On November 8–9 in Niigata, a research presentation will
be held to reexamine the achievements and explorationsof photographer Allan Sekula (1951–2013), an influenceon numerous artists and academics, featuring Professional Advisory Board members Keisuke Kitano (Professor of
Image Arts and Sciences, Ritsumeikan University) andMorihiro Satow (Professor of Visual Studies, Dean of Faculty of Design, Kyoto Seika University), as well as othermembers of the Association for Studies of Culture andRepresentation.
www.repre.org
Partnership with A Celebration of 400 Years of The
Rimpa School of Japanese Painting
400 Years of The Rimpa School/Exhibition of Selected
Cutting-Edge Works: From Tradition to Innovation (Saturday, January 24–Sunday, February 8, 2015 at The Museum of Kyoto) will be held in order to introduce innovative
younger artists active in Kyoto and present their fresh andoriginal works to the world.

Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

FAX: +81-75-257-1454

URL: www.parasophia.jp/en16

Images for press use

Lisa Anne Auerbach, American
Megazine #1, 2013. Ink on
paper. Installation view withmega-girls, Los Angeles
Municipal Art Gallery, 2013.
Photo by the artist, courtesy of
the artist and Gavlak. © Lisa
Anne AuerbachInstallation view of Cai GuoQiang: Da Vincis do Povo in thestreet outside Centro Cultural
Banco do Brasil, São Paulo,2013. Photo by Joana França

Still from Joost Conijn,
Vliegtuig (Airplane), 2000.
Video, 29 min.

Installation view of Stan
Douglas, Luanda-Kinshasa,
2013. Single-channel video
projection, 6 hr. 1 min. (loop),color, soundParasophia: Kyoto International
Festival of Contemporary
Culture 2015 Open Research
Program 03 [Lecture/Performance] Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster “M.2062 (Scarlett),”
Annex, The Museum of Kyoto,
September 6, 2013. Photo by
Tadashi Hayashi, courtesy ofParasophia Office

Still from Aernout Mik, Touch,rise and fall, 2008. Video
installation. Courtesy of theartist and carlier | gebauer

Susan Philipsz, The DistantSound, 2014. Three-channelsound installation. Installation
view, Moss, Norway, 2014.
Photo by Eoghan McTigue.
© Susan Philipsz

Pipilotti Rist, Mercy Garden
Retour Skin, 2014. Audio video
installation. Photo inspiredby Yuji, courtesy of the artist,
Hauser & Wirth, and Luhring
Augustine

Installation view of Arin
Rungjang, Golden Teardrop,
2013. Video installation.
Photo by Kornkrit Jianpinidnan,
courtesy of the artist and the
Office of Contemporary Art andCulture, Thailand

Miwa Yanagi, stage truck for
Nichirin no tsubasa, 2014.
Photo by Shen Chao-Liang

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Public Relations
Please contact Public Relations for interview requests, permission for photography, etc.
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Press Inquiries: Parasophia Office | 645 Tearaimizu-cho, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto 604-8152 JAPANE-mail: press@parasophia.jp

Phone: +81-75-257-1453

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URL: www.parasophia.jp/en17