Transphere # 3
トランス
フィ
ア

Contemporary Art - Living MemoryRei Naito#3

Rei Naito, human, 2012 + atomic-bombed glass bottle, collection of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, photo: Naoya Hatakeyama, Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

内藤礼

the emotion of belief
信の感情

Maison de la culture
du Japon à Paris
101bis, quai Branly
75015 Paris
Metro Bir-Hakeim
RER Champ de Mars
MCJ - Transphère #3 Rei Naito.humain 40x60.fab3.indd 1

Exhibition
17.01.25 —
03.18
www.mcjp.fr
facebook : mcjp.officiel
twitter : @mcjp_officiel#MCJP#TRANSPHERE

Free entrance
Supported bySponsored by

Our Partners

16/12/2016 18:00

the emotion of belief
Exhibition
17.01.25.— 03.18
the emotion of belief is the new installation of Rei Naito, an artist who hasbuilt an international reputation with her minimalist and conceptual creations.
Rarely seen in France, her poignant work will be presented from January toMarch 2017 at Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris - MCJP (The Japan Cultural Institute in Paris).
It was in Hiroshima, her hometown, where Rei Naito presented in 2013 the first ofher works inscribing a reflection on the atomic bomb. Entitled tama / anima (pleasebreathe life into me), she represented a space for the dead and the living.
For the third part of Transphere – a series of exhibitions devoted to contemporary
Japanese creation - the artist reactuates this installation by providing an unclutteredwork conducive to meditation. Irradiated and melted grass bottles, witnesses of thecatastrophe of Hiroshima and its consequences are placed on a pedestal. Small
sculptures of human form, called human, are arranged alongside these bottles.
These artefacts do not hide their fragility, underlining their existence, and compose anew place of memory. Expressing the inexpressible, the work of Rei Naito invites us
to contemplation.
Rei Naito is one of those artists who, since the earthquake of 11 March 2011 andthe Fukushima nuclear accident, have greatly changed their way of creation. Fromthe very beginning, she has herself constantly observed and reflected on the humancondition, as evidenced by une place sur Terre, an installation she presented at theVenice Biennale in 1997: a sort of tent in which only one visitor could penetrate ata time and contemplate, in great tranquillity, the small fragile objects which wereplaced there. The Hiroshima catastrophe, buried in her for many years, re-emerged
after the shock of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011, when the problemof irradiation little by little reared its head. Rei Naito has since enriched her reflection
by taking into account the future of the world and the human race.
Among the works of Rei Naito that can be admired in Japan, two of her permanent
installations are now housed in Naoshima and Teshima, the islands of the SetoInland Sea.
Matrix is exhibited by the Teshima Art Museum, a stunning concrete building piercedwith two cells through which rain, sunshine and local wildlife can enter. Once inside
the building, visitors experience a poetic and surprising work: fine droplets of water
appear, and then run off before disappearing in an unpredictable choreography.

Rei Naito, human, 2012
+ atomic-bombed glass bottle, collectionof Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
photo: Naoya Hatakeyama,
Courtesy of Gallery Koyanagi

A presentation of this work by Rei Naito extracted from the film A Room of Her Own- Rei Naito and Light, directed by Yuko Nakamura in 2015, will be screened at theentrance to the MCJP exhibition.
Curator: Aomi Okabe, Artistic Director of Exhibitions at the MCJP.

Maison de la culture
du Japon à Paris101 bis, quai Branly
75015 Paris
M° Bir-Hakeim
RER Champ de Mars
t: 01 44 37 95 00/01

Exhibition
From January 25 to March 18
2017
Exhibition room (level 2)
Opening hours: Tuesday toSaturday
from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Free entrance

PRESS CONTACTS
Martial Hobeniche
2e BUREAU
maisonculturejapon@2e-bureau.com
t: 01 42 33 93 18

CONTACTS / MCJP
Exhibition
Mami Iida
t: 01 44 37 95 64
m.iida@mcjp.fr
Public relations
Philippe Achermann
t: 01 44 37 95 24
p.achermann@mcjp.fr

Around the exhibition
Conversation with Rei Naito
Tuesday, January 24 at 6 p.m.*
Petite salle (ground floor)
Duration : approximately 1h30

Rei Naito will present her work in response to Aomi Okabe’s questions, from her first installations of the1990s to her new creation exhibited at the MCJP. She will initiate a discussion with Bernard Blistène, thedirector of the National Museum of Modern Art - Pompidou Centre, and a great admirer of her works.
Moderator : Aomi Okabe

Meeting with Laure Adler

Thursday, February 2 at 6 p.m.*
Petite salle (ground floor)
Duration : approximately 1h30

« The only force in this world is purity » (Simone Weil)
Laure Adler is the author of numerous essays and biographies devoted to the women who have marked
History: Hannah Arendt, Françoise Giroud and Simone Weil, a philosopher who strongly influenced Rei Naito
at the beginning of her career. Simone Weil, who died young, possessed an unshakeable will coupled with ademand for purity that is reminiscent of how Rei Naito pursues her artistic quest. Laure Adler will explain thelinks and similarities she sees in the works of the French philosopher and the Japanese artist.
The meeting moderated by Aomi Okabe

Meeting with Tadashi Kawamata and Clélia Zernik
Tuesday, February 7 at 6 p.m.*
Petite salle (ground floor)
Duration : approximately 1h30

Artist Tadashi Kawamata presented this year at the Pompidou Centre-Metz the work Under the Water, astriking evocation of the tsunami of 2011 and a tribute to those that disappeared. He will explain to us what
differentiates or brings his installations closer to those of Rei Naito.
Clélia Zernik teaches philosophy of art at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her
research focuses on Japanese contemporary aesthetics, in particular on the work of photographer Naoya
Hatakeyama, who has been photographing Rei Naito’s works for several years.
* Limited number of seats. Reservation : www.mcjp.fr

Rei Naito, tama / anima (please breathe life into me),2013, installation view at Hiroshima Prefectual Art Museum, Hiroshima, photo : Naoya Hatakeyama, Courtesyof Gallery Koyanagi