PRESS RELEASE

2020.2.6

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

Things Entangling
A Collaboration between MOT and KADISTMarch 14 (Sat) – June 14 (Sun), 2020

The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and KADIST present the exhibition Things Entangling, the culminationof a major, long-term curatorial collaboration.
Trees, fossils, books, artifacts—these are some of our companions as we live in and make sense of the world.
They are protagonists in our reconstructions of the past and constructions of the present, as both individuals
and societies. They may create their own meaning through their own agency, or gain it from our use andcirculation of them—even our discarding of them. They have the ability to configure social realities, cultural
identities, and human subjectivities.
Against a global context of challenging ecological and sociopolitical changes, this exhibition features artworks
that trace and animate the trajectories, nexuses, and mutations of things, in which realities and histories collide
and reverberate continuously. These things entangling are not framed as fixed but as always in process. They
might be material objects or living subjects, but they are always also mediators of meaning, ideology, and value.
From installation to video, photography, and collage, the artworks effectively make silent things speak thanks
to new assemblages that unearth hidden histories of the subordinated, follow nature’s evolutions under thebrutal circumstances of capitalism, imagine the repatriation of cultural heritage, and decipher the unfulfilledaspirations underlying historical and contemporary dislocations. They show how artistic manipulations canreveal the permeability of things as well as their aesthetic and mediating potential.
When the twelve invited artists invoke anthropology, archaeology, or historiography to seek rootedness or toprobe resonances with specific moments and places, they aim less to excavate or clarify the past than to open
up a new politics of interpretation for building the present. Haunted by different time spans and territories,
positions and subjectivities, they explore what is channeled through and mediated by entities around us in orderto unravel the apparatuses of our societies and cultures. They also examine how these apparatuses aretransformed by various forces, including energies of nature, human interest, and abiding beliefs.
Via speculation and imagination, Things Entangling draws our attention to the hidden lives of things and theirmultifaceted interactions, and explores how reconstructing, animating, or restoring their agency could prompt
us to revisit or even reposition ourselves in our current society and environment, facing as we do unprecedented
natural and human-made crises. Longing for desirable futures, the artists aim to reveal unexpected intersections,
elusive networks, and fleeting affinities between things. Through their work they aspire to open up the closed
circles, exclusive territories, and static systems that are around and also within us.
Contact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en1Artists
Pio Abad, Liu Chuang, Hikaru Fujii, Dale Harding, Yukihisa Isobe, Asako Iwama, Kapwani Kiwanga, Jumana Manna,
mixrice, Tom Nicholson, The Propeller Group and Superflex, Alexandra Pirici

About KADISTKADIST believes contemporary artists make an important contribution to a progressive society by addressing
through their work the key issues of our time. As a non-profit organization dedicated to exhibiting the work ofartists represented in its collection, KADIST encourages this engagement and affirms contemporary art’s
relevance within social discourse. Its programs develop collaborations with artists, curators and many artorganizations around the world, facilitating new connections across cultures. Local programs in KADIST’s hubsof Paris and San Francisco include exhibitions, public events, residencies and educational initiatives.
Complemented by an active online network, they aim at creating vibrant conversations about contemporary art
and ideas.

About the collaboration between MOT and KADIST
Things Entangling is the last step of a curatorial collaboration between the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyoand KADIST. Initiated in 2016, this collaboration unfolds across a series of three exhibitions based on artistic
forms of engagement in contemporary society.
After a first group exhibition entitled Almost nothing, yet not nothing, presented at the Tokyo University for theArts as part of MOT Satellite project in October-November 2017 and Les nucléaires et les choses, a solo
exhibition by Hikaru Fujii which took place at KADIST, Paris in May-July 2019, this final international exhibition
will bring together new works as well as works from the two collections.

Artists’ Biography
Pio AbadBorn in 1983 in Manila, the Philippines. Lives and works in London. Deeply informed by the modern history of
the Philippines, where the artist was born and raised, Pio Abad’s work, which ranges from drawing to textiles,
installation, and photography, engages the complexities of hegemonic power and its representation throughobjects. By appropriating symbols of power and evoking a sense of excess, the artist weaves together multiple
layers of histories and present-day realities arising from forms of repression, rendering visible his critique andsolidarity with those who stand against injustice.
Liu Chuang
Born in 1979 in Hubei, China. Lives and works in Beijing. Known for engaging with socioeconomic mattersrelated to China’s immediate realities, Liu Chuang creates works that integrate readymades and social
interventions across various mediums, from video to installation, architecture, and performance. He reflects on
personal experiences of globalization and sociopolitical systems underlying the everyday.
Hikaru Fujii
Born in 1976 in Tokyo. Lives and works in Tokyo. Hikaru Fuji’s films, installations, workshops, and writings explore
the relationship between art and social activism. When revisiting a specific historical incident or present-day
situation involving domination and exploitation, the artist undertakes extensive research and fieldwork to
explore the potential of critique over that power and the sociopolitical systems supporting it.
Contact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en2

Dale Harding
Born in 1982 in Moranbah, Queensland, Australia. Lives and works in Brisbane. Dale Harding—a descendant of
the Bidjara, Ghungalu, and Garingbal peoples of Central Queensland—explores untold histories through his
installations. He specifically investigates the social and political realities experienced by members of his family,
especially his matrilineal elders, who lived under government control in Queensland. More broadly, his work
addresses agency, power, and systems of domination in contemporary Australia.
Yukihisa Isobe
Born in 1935 in Tokyo. Lives and works in Tokyo. Yukihisa Isobe began as a painter with a particular interest in
abstract forms and symbols, natural landscapes, and living things. After moving in 1965 to the United States tostudy natural sciences (geology, ecology, and cultural anthropology) at the University of Pennsylvania, hebecame enamored with ecological planning, a process of understanding and evaluating the use of landscapeto ensure a better fit with human habitation, and began integrating graphics and colors from that field into his
practice. Plans and mapping have since become a constant motif in his work, and serve to emphasize thereciprocal long-term relationship between a region’s environment and its human cultures.
Asako Iwama
Born in 1975 in Tokyo. Lives and works in Berlin and Tokyo. Her background as both cook and artist has led
Asako Iwama to organize a number of experimental workshops and field trips that explore the social dimensionsof eating. Her more recent practice further investigates historical and technological shifts in relationships
between natural elements and the body as material and subjectivity through physical engagement, including(re)modeling, sampling, tracing, and research.
Kapwani Kiwanga
Born in 1978 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Lives and works in Paris. Using archival materials and referencing
anthropology, history, and architecture, Kapwani Kiwanga’s research-driven work investigates marginalized andforgotten histories. By evoking the symbolism and associations of certain objects or materials, her installations
help us see the world differently by addressing hidden authoritarian structures, institutional devices, and power
imbalances.
Jumana Manna
Born in 1987 in Princeton, New Jersey, and raised in Jerusalem. Lives and works in Berlin. Working in film andsculpture, Jumana Manna explores how power relations play out in the inheritances of colonialism, and systemsof sustenance in particular. She unpacks ideological narratives to understand their impacts on social relations
and the intimacies of everyday life. Referring to the human body, archaeology, and industrial structures, theworks are amalgamations marked by both specificities of place and dislocations.
mixrice
mixrice was established by Cho Jieun (b. 1975) and Yang Chulmo (b. 1977) in 2002 in Seoul. Many of theirmultidisciplinary works and projects engage with migrants in Korea, questioning the idea of community andbelonging, critiquing society’s attitude toward difference, or exploring together how to articulate migrants’aspirations behind their border crossing. They have expanded their artistic scope since 2013 to examine faunaand flora that migrate or are forced to migrate due to urban and energy development, thereby reflecting
another subject-form affected by capitalism and its power of resilience.
Tom Nicholson
Born in 1973 in Melbourne, Australia. Lives and works in Melbourne. Tom Nicholson employs drawing, film,
installation, actions, and writing to engage with colonial histories of Australia that unfold in and outside of thecountry. He draws connections between different moments, places, and subjects, often through in-deptharchival research and dialogue with objects, people, and narratives. The process of engagement results inContact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en3

various modes of production and articulation, including collaborative object making and imagining monuments
anew. Uncovering thin layers of history that might otherwise remain unnoticed or proposing alternative
trajectories of history, he critiques the nation-state system that draws borders and allocates power.

The Propeller Group and Superflex
The Propeller Group was established in 2006 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. A platform for collectivity, it examines
political and social issues related to Vietnam’s tumultuous past, the residual effects of the Cold War, and therise of neocolonialism. Their complex projects employ nontraditional art materials and methods that are meant
to disrupt and/or reconsider modes of cultural production. They often team up with Superflex, a Danish artist
group committed to social and economic change, founded in 1993, to coproduce a variety of moving-image
projects, including short films, video installations, television series, and even a ten-day-long film.
Alexandra Pirici
Born in 1982 in Bucharest, Romania. Lives and works in Bucharest. Alexandra Pirici’s ongoing actions andperformative works use embodiment to explore history, the production of meaning, and invisible structures ofpower, in both the gallery and public spaces. Her work uses movement—specifically the body, whether physicallyor virtually present—to reimagine the future by rereading historical and art historical narratives, turning objects
into actions via enactments or living sculptures, and resituating abstraction in the living body.

EventsParthenon Marbles by Alexandra Pirici
Dates: March 14 (Sat) & 15 (Sun) 11:00-15:00
April 5 (Sun), May 3 (Sun), May 4 (Mon), June 6 (Sat), June 7 (Sun) 13:00 -17:00
Venue: Exhibition Gallery 1F
Language: Japanese. The English script is available

Artists’ & Curators’ Talk
Date: March 14 (Sat) 15:00-16:30
Venue: Exhibition Gallery 1F
Language: English and JapaneseInternational Symposium
Date: June 13 (Sat) 14:00-17:00
Venue: Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Language: English with Japanese simultaneous translation*Please note all events dates and details are subject to change.
*Please visit the museum website for updates and more details.

Contact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en4

Information
PeriodMarch 14 (Sat) – June 14 (Sun), 2020

ClosedMondays (except May 4), May 7

Opening Hours

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

Admission

Adults – 1300yen / University & College Students, Over 65 – 900yen / High School &Junior High School Students –500yen / Elementary School Students & Younger – Free

Venue

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Exhibition Gallery 1F

Organizers

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

Under the patronage of Ambassade de France / Institut français du Japon
Grant fromTakashimaya Cultural Foundation,, Institut françaisCorporate support

JAPAN AIRLINES,

Special support

Futaba Town Board of Education, Fukushima

Curators

Kyongfa Che (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo) and Elodie Royer (KADIST)

Concurrent Exhibitions
Olafur Eliasson: Sometimes the river is the bridge
The Potentiality of Drawing
MOT Collection: Present Day and in Times Past –Multiple Perspectives

Contact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en5Images

1 Tom Nicholson, Comparative Monument (Shellal),2014-2017（installation detail）
Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Photo: Christian Capurro

2 Pio Abad, The Collection of Jane Ryan & William Saunders,
2014-2019 （installation detail）

3 Alexandra Pirici, Parthenon Marbles, 2017 (exhibition view)Collection: KADIST Photo: Ouidade Soussi-Chiadmi

4 Hikaru Fujii, Fukushima Cultural Property Center, 2019（reference image）

5 Asako Iwama
Artist in her studio (reference image)

6 Liu Chuang, Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities, 2018

7 mixrice, Plants that Evolve (in some way or other),2013

Contact

8 Jumana Manna, Cache(Insurance Policy), 2018-2019(installation detail) Photo: Luca Guadagnini

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en6

IMAGE REQUEST FORM

FAX. +81-3-5245-1141

We have prepared 8 PR images for members of the press for the purpose of creating or supporting timely news stories related tothe exhibition. Use of the press images for any other purpose requires the additional prior permission of the museum and may
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The images can be obtained upon request using the following image request form. Please provide the following information via
e-mail or fax (+81-3-5245-1141). With regards to the usage of these images in your publication, we would like to make thefollowing requests:* We would much appreciate it if we could be provided with a copy of respective article texts for us to check for errors before thefinal print.
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1

Tom Nicholson, Comparative Monument (Shellal), 2014-2017 (installation detail)Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Photo: Christian Capurro

2

Pio Abad, The Collection of Jane Ryan & William Saunders, 2014-2019(installation detail)3

Alexandra Pirici, Parthenon Marbles, 2017
(exhibition view) Collection: KADIST Photo: Ouidade Soussi-Chiadmi

4

Hikaru Fujii, Fukushima Cultural Property Center, 2019(reference image)

5

Asako Iwama, Artist in her studio(reference image)6

Liu Chuang, Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities , 20187

mixrice, Plants that Evolve (in some way or other) , 20138

Jumana Manna, Cache (Insurance Policy), 2018-2019(installation detail) Photo: Luca Guadagnini

Contact

Media Inquiries about the Exhibition: Yoshiko Nawa E-MAIL: info@relayrelay.net
Inquiries about the Museum: 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/en7