Press Release 2013/03/05

Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Hara Museum
Collection
March 16 (Saturday) - June 26 (Wednesday), 2013
Galleries A, B and C (Contemporary Art)

1. Sophie Calle, Exquisite Pain (1999)

Hara Museum ARC is proud to present an exhibition featuring large-scale installations by two of the world's mostdynamic artists: Exquisite Pain by Sophie Calle and The Hallway by Miranda July. Sophie Calle, a major Frenchartist and cutting-edge figure on the international stage, first created Exquisite Pain for her solo exhibition at theHara Museum in 1999. Consisting of photographs and embroidered Japanese text, the installation presents a vivid
record of her journey from Paris to Japan and the subsequent pain of her heartbreak. Miranda July, a multi-talented
artist who occupies a leading position within a new generation of artists in America, first presented The Hallway, ahandwritten, introspective missive about universal aspects of life, at the Yokohama Triennial (2008) where it
created a sensation. This show represents a rare opportunity to experience back to back works by artists whocontinue to redefine the boundaries of contemporary art as they traverse the line between fact and fiction.

Concurrent Exhibition at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Taking place at the same time will be Sophie Calle's solo exhibition at the Hara Museum in Tokyo, Sophie Calle,
For the Last and First Time (March 20 (Wednesday) – June 30 (Sunday)). This show will consist of two parts: TheLast Image (2010), an installation that weaves together text and photographs taken by the artist about people whohave lost the power of sight, and Voir la mer (See the sea) (2011), another installation which captures on film theexpression of persons seeing the ocean for the first time. Transport between the two venues by shuttle bus is being
planned.

Exhibition Details
Title: Spinning the Word: Sophie Calle and Miranda July from the Hara Museum Collection
Dates: March 16 (Saturday) - June 26 (Wednesday), 2013
Place: Hara Museum ARC (2855-1, Kanai, Shibukawa-shi, Gunma 377-0027) Tel: 0279-24-6585
Organized by: Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
http://www.haramuseum.or.jp (official website) http://mobile.haramuseum.or.jp (mobile site)
http://www.art-it.asia/u/HaraMuseum (blog) http://twitter.com/HaraMuseumARC (Twitter)
Hours: 9:30 am - 4:30 pm *Last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Closed: Thursdays (except March 28 and May 2) *Closed temporarily in the event of severe weather.
Admission: General (over 12) 1,000 yen; children (over 3) 500 yen; 10% discount for a group of 20 or more; a 100yen discount with the Hara Museum ticket.
*Children must be accompanied by an adult. *Combination ticket for Hara Museum ARC and Ikaho Green Bokujo
ranch: General 1,800 yen; Children 900 yen.

Getting There: By train: Take the Joetsu Shinkansen to Takasaki, change to the Joestu Line, and disembark atShibukawa. From Shibukawa, ARC is 10 minutes away by taxi or 15 minutes by bus (take the Ikaho Onsen bus to“Green Bokujo Mae”). By car: 8 kilometers (about 15 minutes) from the Kan-etsu Expressway Shibukawa Ikaho
Interchange (in the direction of Ikaho Onsen).
Related Events:
Bus Tours to Hara Museum ARC
Several bus tours from Tokyo to Hara Museum ARC will be conducted during the exhibition.
Screening Event at the Hara Museum: Short Films by Miranda July
*Details for the events will be posted on the Hara Museum website at a later date.

Who Is Sophie Calle?
Calle was born in Paris in 1953. In her late-teens, she left home to wander for seven years, returning to Paris at theage of 26. From that time, she began creating, and from 1980, she began to exhibit. She has won fame largely forher highly narrative work composed of photographs and language. For the project The Sleepers (1979), Calle
photographed and interviewed 24 strangers whom she had invited to come to her home and sleep in her bed. ForThe Hotel (1981), Calle worked as a chambermaid at a hotel in Venice where she photographed the rooms of thehotel guests. The Address Book (1983) refers to an address book found by the artist. Calling the people listed in thebook, Calle conducted interviews about the owner and then published them in the French daily newspaper
Libération. These projects, including those made during the 1990s such as True Stories and Suite Venitienne, wereintriguing mixtures of fact and fiction. During this time, she also began working on a series about persons withoutsight, beginning with The Blind (1986). It was a profound examination into the nature of sight and perception,
which lie at the very foundation of art.
As one of France's leading artists and a leading figure in the world of art, she has held solo exhibitions at major
museums such as the Whitechapel Gallery (2009) and the Centre Pompidou (2003) and has represented her country
at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and other international art events. In addition to these various
semi-autobiographical series, Calle has also engaged in collaborative projects with others, including the novelist
Paul Auster, and has made films such as Double Blind, which she directed and appeared in. These works, whichpush the boundaries of contemporary art, remain a focus of much attention today.
In Japan, she has held several solo exhibitions, including Exquisite Pain at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art,
Tokyo and an exhibition at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2003). Her work has also appeared in such groupexhibitions as Beyond the photographic frame / 11 recent works (1990, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki) and Images inTransition: Photographic Representations in the Eighties (1990, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto National
Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). She currently lives in Malakoff on the outskirts of Paris.
About Exquisite Pain
This installation consists of two parts. In part one (Countdown), letters to her mostbeloved person and photographs are used to relate the story of the worse day of her life.
Part two (Countup) is the story of her gradual recovery, which she achieved by sharing
her story of hurt with other people and then listening in turn to their stories about theworse experience of their lives. These many stories--of lost love, of lost eyesight, of thebirth of a crippled child--are embroidered with black thread onto white sheets and hungon the gallery walls. Exquisite Pain was presented 14 years ago in the solo exhibition of the same name at the Hara
Museum. The unfolding of this part of her life and her encounter with the lives of others undoubtedly touched thehearts of many viewers. In her work, however, the fuzzy distinction between fact and fiction underscores the dangerof unquestioning belief.

Who is Miranda July?
Miranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. She was born in 1974 in Vermont and grew up in Berkeley,California. Both her parents were writers who ran a publishing house. After graduating from high school, she went
the University of California, Santa Cruz, dropped out, and moved to Portland, Oregon where she worked as aperformance artist. From 1997, she began to make movies. Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), which shewrote, directed and starred in, won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival (2005) and prizes in four
categories, including the Camera d’Or (for first-time directors) at the Cannes Film Festival, propelling her into thelimelight. Her second and most recent feature-length movie, which she wrote, directed and starred in, is The Future,
which is presently being screened at the Theater Image Forum (Shibuya, Tokyo). It has been selected for theCompetition section at the Berlin International Film Festival.
July′s multifaceted activities include performance art, web-based art and sound (voice) art. Her projects have beenpresented at sites such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Venice Biennale, and theWhitney Biennial. July created the participatory website, learningtoloveyoumore, with artist Harrell Fletcher and acompanion book was published in 2007 (Prestel). This work is now in collection of The San Francisco Museum ofModern Art.
In 2008, July presented The Hallway at the Yokohama Triennale in Japan, where it caused a sensation. In 2009, she
designed the interactive sculpture garden Eleven Heavy Things for the Venice Biennale in 2009. This was later
installed in Union Square in New York and is currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles.
From 2001, she began publishing fiction in such publications as The Paris Review, The New Yorker and Harper′s.
Her first collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007), won the Frank O′Connor International
Short Story Award and has been published in twenty countries. Her latest book, It Chooses You (2011), is scheduled
to be published in Japan by Shinchosha (translated by Sachiko Kishimoto). She currently lives in Los Angeles.
About The Hallway
A 125 foot hallway lined with fifty wooden signs, hand-painted with text. As the viewer/participant walks down theseemingly endless hall, weaving between the signs, the text acts as an internal voice, ″It’s too late to go back now,
but the end seems far away…″ The ″you″ in text realizes that you’ll be walking down this hallway for the rest ofyour life. And like life, the hall is filled with indecision, disappointment, boredom and joy – and it does end.
(English in one direction, Japanese in the other.)(From the website YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT http://mirandajuly.com/art)Images for Publication

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1 – 7 Sophie Calle, Exquisite Pain (1999)
8 – 11 Miranda July, The Hallway (2008) Photo by Keizo Kioku

For publicity materials, please contact: Hara Museum ARC, 2855-1, Kanai, Shibukawa-shi, Gunma 377-0027
Tel: 0279-24-6585 Fax: 0279-24-0449 E-mail: press@haramuseum.or.jp