The Japan Foundation, Manila in cooperation with the Metropolitan Museum of Manila is proud to present the traveling exhibition Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art at the Tall Galleries of the MET Museum from February 19 to April 15, 2014.
Winter Garden is curated by art critic Midori Matsui and features 35 works – drawings, paintings and video works of fourteen (14) young Japanese artists active from the latter half of the 1990s throughout the first decade of the 21st century. Participating artists include: Ryoko Aoki, Tam Ochiai, Lyota Yagi, Koki Tanaka, Hiroshi Sugito, Taro Izumi, Mahomi Kunikata, Aya Takano, Makiko Kudo, Chim#Pom, Masanori Handa, Hiroe Saeki, Masaya Chiba, and Keisuke Yamamoto.
Created by Ms. Matsui, the word “Micropop” indicates the methods of: 1) accumulating various fragments of information gained from individual experiences in order to form unique aesthetics or ways of behavior; and 2) re-using preexisting, everyday objects, outmoded fashions or anonymous places, in a playful way to deviate from their utilitarian functions and social assumptions in order to create situations or new games in which participants can find new opportunities for mutual communication or meaningful actions.
To complement the exhibition, an Art Talk by Ms. Mami Kataoka will be held on March 8 (Saturday), 3:00 p.m. at the museum. Ms. Kataoka is chief curator at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo since its inauguration in 2003. She has curated a number of exhibitions including “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (2009), “Lee Bul: From Me, Belongs to You Only”(2012), “Makoto Aida: Monument for Nothing” (2012) and most recently co-curated “Roppongi Crossing 2013: Out of Doubt” (2013). She was also a first international curator at the Hayward Gallery in London from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 she guest curated “Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past” for Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, and was a Co-Artistic Director for the 9th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. She is a frequent writer and lecturer on contemporary Japanese and Asian art and the artists and also serves as a board member of International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CiMAM) .
For more details, please contact The Japan Foundation, Manila (JFM) at telephone numbers (02) 811 6155 to 58 or email@jfmo.org.ph. Or visit www.jfmo.org.ph or www.facebook.com/jfmanila.
The Metropolitan Museum of Manila is located at Bankgo Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, Roxas Boulevard, Manila. The museum is open from Monday to Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.