September 2024
Press Release #1

Yuichiro Tamura ATM

Overview
Exhibition Title: Yuichiro Tamura ATM
Dates: November 2, 2024 - January 26, 2025
Open Hours: 10:00-18:00 (last admission at 17:30)
Venues: Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
Artists: Yuichiro Tamura
Closed on Mondays (except for November 4 and January 13), December 27-January 3 and November 5,January 14
Admission Fee: ¥900 (¥700 for group of more than 20 people)
Free of charge for High school student, seniors over 70, the disabled and one accompanying attendant→ Student card or other identification with age required.
- One-year Pass: ¥2,000 for a one-year pass
- “First Friday” special discount for students and senior citizens→ Student card holders and seniors 65 to 69 get a discount rate of ¥100 each first Friday (November 8,December 6, January 10)
Organized by Mito Arts Foundation

Grant: The Japan Arts Council
Technical support: Media R&D Center, The Asahi Shimbun Company
Supported by: Nagoya University of Arts, Matsushima Holdings Co., Ltd., MtK Contemporary Art,
Suntory Holdings Limited, The Joyo Bank, Ltd., Kawamata-Music Co., Ltd.
Curator: Yu Iseki (Senior Curator, Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito)Outline of the Exhibition
Yuichiro Tamura has created works that start from existing imagery and objects. Media for his works widely differ
such as photography, film, installation, performance, and theater. Based on various sources of inspiration fromindigenous historic themes to familiar popular subjects, his works are characterized by multilayered narratives ofintersecting reality and fiction, providing new interpretations to original histories and memories, and theirconnection to the contemporary.
In this exhibition, he presents a new work entitled ATM, which was inspired by the abbreviation of Art Tower Mito.
Visitors to the exhibition are introduced to the world of Tamura’s works by short stories created by generative AI,
which is aided by a vast amount of text written by the artist. Tamura, who has constructed works with narrative
elements in forms of stories with narrations, tales, and episodes, says that what comes at the beginning of hiswork is to write text. In his new work ATM, he entrusted this task to generative AI and tried to weave new stories
by tracing fragments from his past works.

Yuichiro Tamura’s Biographty
Born in Toyama in 1977 and currently based in Kyoto.
Graduated from Nihon University College of Art with a major in photography. He has completed the doctoral
program in the department of film and new media, Tokyo University of the Arts. He belonged to Institut fürRaumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments) at Berlin University of the Arts from 2013 to 2014. His recent
exhibitions include Milky Mountain (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand, 2019), Hell Scream (Kyoto City
University of Arts Art Gallery＠KCUA, 2018), Week End (Kurumaya Museum of Art, 2017). Group exhibitions heparticipated in include Wunderkammer to Come: From the Uncompleted, a Beginning (Toyota Municipal
Museum of Art, 2024), WORLD CLASSROOM (Mori Art Museum, 2023), Before/After (Hiroshima City Museumof Contemporary Art, 2023), DOUBLE VISION (Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, 2022), Gift,Gift, (Hachinohe Art Museum,2021), voice-over (Shiga Museum of Art, 2021), Readings from Below (Times Art Center Berlin, Berlin, 2020),
Participation Mystique (Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, 2020), Image Narratives: Literature inJapanese Contemporary Art (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2019), Where Am I?: The Art and Design ofSignage (Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design, 2019), The Fabric of Felicity (Garage Museum ofContemporary Art, Moscow, 2018), Nissan Art Award 2017, Festival Future Nows (Hamburger Bahnhof, Museumfür Gegenwart, Berlin, 2017), 2 or 3 Tigers (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 2017), BODY/PLAY/POLITICS(Yokohama Museum of Art, 2016), Form of Narrative (Sendai Mediatheque, 2015), Photography Will Be (AichiPrefectural Museum of Art, 2014), Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions (Tokyo PhotographicArt Museum, 2014), MOT ANNUAL 2012, Making Situations, Editing Landscapes (Museum of Contemporary ArtTokyo, 2012). He also participated in many international art festivals in and outside Japan such as Aichi Triennale
2022, Yokohama Triennale 2020, 2019 Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan), Busan Biennale 2018, SeMA Seoul
Mediacity Biennale 2014, Art Setouchi 2013.
Yuichiro Tamura Website: https://damianoyurkiewich.com/

▼Highlights of the Exhibition〇 Yuichiro Tamura’s largest-scale solo exhibition
Yuichiro Tamura has participated in a number of international art festivals such as Aichi Triennale 2022,Yokohama Triennale 2020, 2019 Asian Art Biennial (Taiwan), Busan Biennale 2018, SeMA Seoul Mediacity
Biennale 2014, Art Setouchi 2013, and is active in and outside Japan. He is one of the contemporary artists whois gaining prominence at present. This exhibition is his solo exhibition in seven years and is on the largest scale
so far.
〇 Stories woven by generative AI
In this exhibition, he presents his new installation ATM, inspired by the abbreviation of Art Tower Mito. Having
constructed works with narrative elements, Tamura entrusted the task of writing, which had been at the base of
his works, to generative AI based on his past texts. He tries to mechanically create a new story.
〇 Tamura’s reconstruction
Tamura’s new installation ATM consists of groups of fragments from his past works. Visitors to the exhibition willbe led by a story woven by generative AI, and passing through his past works as relics, they will encounter new“Tamura.” In that sense, this exhibition of his new work simulates his retrospective.

▼Related Programs
Artist Talk
Date: November 2, 13:30-15:00
Venues: Conference Hall
Capacity: 80 persons
Showing of Yuichiro Tamura’s film, TASTELESSTASTELESS is Yuichiro Tamura’s first work that filmed histheater piece. The contemporary artist has created installations
and performances that build multilayered narratives in which
reality and fiction intersect, based on existing imagery andobjects. The video recording of the showing at Kyoto Art Theater
Shunjuza in 2021 will be screened at ACM Theatre, Art Tower
Mito.
Date: January 11,2025 14:00-15:00
Venues: ACM Theatre

TASTELESS, Kyoto Art Theater Shunjuza, theater play, 2021

Capacity:150 persons
Composition: Yuichiro Tamura
Appearance: Koji Yamazaki, Yu Araki

Dramaturg: Takuya Maehara

Weekend Gallery Talk
CAC (Contemporary Art Center) gallery volunteer talkers guide visitors to explore the exhibition together.
Dates: Saturdays from November 16 onwards, starting at 14:30, approx. 40min.
Venue: Contemporary Art Gallery

Fee: free *exhibition ticket is required.

▼Also Happening
Criterium 101 Takuya Watanabe
Date: November 2―January 26, 2025
Venue: Gallery 9, Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
Admission: Ticket for “Yuichiro Tamura ATM” is required.
Sponsored by: Corp. ASIASYSTEMSERVICE
Curated by: Yuu Takehisa (Artistic Director, ContemporaryArt Center, Art Tower Mito)
Referential image: Work-in-Progress in Ohara, 2024-

Criterium 101 introduces Takuya Watanabe who expresses his views on mobility and labor through involvementwith people he meets where he stays or his examination of social situations in specific areas.
Watanabe has participated in artist-in-residence programs in various places in and outside Japan, and byresearching the subject closely over a period of time, for example, living in a depopulated marginal settlement, hefinds a universal theme. The subjects he photographs or films are sometimes people who cooperate with him atplaces he visits, and he captures how he relives them in some ways using his body. In recent years, he stayed inSingapore, London and Ohara in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. He continues to conduct research on how plants exert
an influence on people’s lives, behavior, or economy. Plants that neither speak nor move are normally perceived
as objects that are used at people’s convenience. As he reconsiders plants as “subjects of conduct” in theenvironment including the human society, he looks closely at intricately interwoven relationships between plantsand humans.
*Criterium comes from the Latin "criterion," which means a standard. It primarily features new works by a youngartist. Every exhibition is formed jointly by an artist and a curator of Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito.

【Press Image Stock】 The images are avai lable for pres s purpose. Please contac t Torii at the office.
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789101. End Game, Nissan Art Award 2017, BankART Studio NYK, Yokohama, Installation, 2017
2. Hey Daddy, Hey Brother, 2 or 3 Tigers, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Installation, 20173. Invisible Hands, Aichi Triennale 2022、Tokoname City、Installation, 2022 / World Classroom, Mori Art Museum, 2023
4. Milky Bay, BODY/PLAY/POLITICS, Yokohama Museum of Art, Installation, 2016
/ Asian Art Biennale, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, 2019
5. MJ, Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Installation, 2019
6. Sky Eyes, Image Narratives, The National Art Center, Tokyo, Installation, 2019 / Interrupted Meals, How Art Museum, Shanghai
7. The Stone of Madagascar, Mixed Media, 2015
8. TiOS, Wunderkammer to Come: From the Uncompleted, a Beginning, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Installation, 2024
9. Unexpected Gift, Gift,Gift,, Hachinohe Art Museum, Installation, 2021
10. Silence in the Mist, VOICE-OVER Reverberations of the Museum, Shiga Museum of Art, Installation, 2021

NOTESCONTACT
Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito
1-6-8, Goken-cho, Mito City, Ibaraki, 310-0063, Japan
Tel: +81 (0)29 227 8120 / Fax: +81 (0)29 227 8130 https://arttowermito.or.jp/
Regarding the exhibition, contact Yu Iseki (Senior Curator, Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito).
Regarding educational programs, contact Junko Moriyama, Yoshihiro Nakagawa (Educational Program
Coordinators)
For public relations and publicity of photographs, contact Kaori Torii (PR).
Email: cacpr@arttowermito.or.jp
Information is available on ATM X(twitter) account http://twitter.com/MITOGEI_Gallery
Requests regarding publication of information:
1. Please make sure to use the official title of the exhibition, along with the exhibition dates.
2. When using photographs, please put captions, credits and any other information attached to a photographadjacent to the photo.
3. The phone number of Art Tower Mito to be published is 029-227-8111 only.
4. Please send Kaori Torii a copy of the VTR, newspaper or magazine for our archives.
5. For interviews with an artist or to photograph the exhibition, please contact Kaori Torii in advance. Requests
may not be accepted under some circumstances.
ACCESS
Train:Take the Limited Express on the Joban Line from Ueno Station (also from Shinagawa and Tokyo Station), Tokyo, andget off at Mito Station. The Express runs every 30 min. The ride takes 65-85 min.
From Mito Station, take a bus from stop no. 4, 5, 6 or 7 at the North Exit bus terminal and get off at “Izumi-cho 1chome,” the fourth stop. Walk toward the direction of the Mito station and cross the street (route #50) on the firstcrossing. Walk ahead in a narrow lane in parallel to the crossing. It is a 2-min. walk to Art Tower Mito.
For details, please contact East Japan Railway Company (JR). Tel: 029-221-2836

http://www.jreast.co.jp/Highway Bus:Take a highway bus bound for Mito (via Akatsuka route or Ibarakidaigaku route) from the stop No. 4 at the highway
bus terminal located at the Yaesu South Gate of Tokyo station. The ride takes approx. 100 min. Get off at the “Izumicho 1-chome” stop. It is a 2-min. walk to ATM.
For details, contact Ibaraki Kotsu (Transport). Tel: 029-251-2331

http://www.ibako.co.jp/Car:
Get off at Mito IC on Joban Highway, and drive toward the city center on the route #50 for about 20 min. ATM is near
the crossing of route #349. Pay parking is available on the basement level of Art Tower Mito. The gate is on the northside of the east end of the ATM building. Free for 30 min., ¥200 for an hour and ¥100 for every additional 30 min.
Open from 7:00 to 23:00. For highway tolls and routes, please refer to E-NEXCO Drive Plaza “DoRaPuRa.”
Tel: 0570-024-024

http://www.driveplaza.com/