July 9 – August 29, 2021
Time & Style Midtown is pleased to welcome Mami Kosemura for the exhibition “Painting and Life.”
Although Kosemura’s works express “installation,” “video,” and “photography,” all of them are connected to “painting.”
This is a moving image work in which the artist’s hand has been added very naturally and very skillfully to the pattern of exemplary painting. They leave an imprint on the viewer, just as Western classical portraits of figures and still life cut out in frames and Japanese paintings that their settings have expressed. A beautiful photographic still life work, carefully photographed by hand with a steady focus on the motif, reminiscent of certain classical paintings. It’s like a page out of a museum illustrated book, a work of video and photography that makes you doubt your eyes in the world of beautiful images and drawings. Each expression is delicate, and the process of creation seems more picturesque, with the background scenery and playfulness of the artist behind each move.
The exhibition was postponed last summer, then again last winter, and now is being held this summer at the end of the rainy season. During the two postponements, the season of the exhibition and the season of the works to be exhibited became the same season, and the exhibition was organized flexibly, prioritizing that there would be no contradiction for the viewers. Time & Style, the interior store where this exhibition will be held, is a space reminiscent of a living area with furniture, accessories, and bonsai trees arranged according to the seasons. Kosemura’s adaptable creation of the venue and her interaction with people and stores with signs of everyday life are also highlights of this show named “Pictures and Life.” We hope you will come and enjoy the exhibition. (Planning: Banana Art)
“I create photographic and video works that can be described as camera-based reproductions of paintings, drawing on existing staging methods and structures. All of the works on display look like paintings, but they were all created while photographing actual objects. The theme of this exhibition is ‘Pictures and Life.’ “
“Taking advantage of the interior of Time & Style, the exhibition venue, I will exhibit works based on various forms of pictures we happen to see in our daily lives, rather than pictures created in one piece, such as framed oil paintings.”
“For example, botanical paintings and illustrated books drawn for research purposes, sketches that serve as notes, still life paintings of tableware around us used for studies and traditional Japanese barrier paintings and hanging scrolls that were painted as part of interior spaces. This section is based on pictures that were part of daily life. It can be said that these pictures serve as a mirror reflecting the way of life and people’s way of looking at things in the past. Such is the role of a camera in recording, an observer’s view of nature, or a painter’s gaze on daily necessities. The way they are depicted and the way motifs are used are interesting to us today and strange and questionable. The gaps and inconsistencies between our perspectives and those of the forgotten old paintings become more visible and apparent when we try to recreate what is depicted in the paintings in the real space. I hope that through the slight hesitation and sense of discomfort that arises when facing a piece that has been transformed from a picture into reality and then recreated again in the form of a picture, each viewer will be able to see things with a little more sensitivity than usual. Also, this time, I hope you will enjoy the harmony of my works with your unique living space as a display.”(Mami Kosemura)
Mami Kosemura
D.A. in oil painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Kosemura has been creating video installations and photographic works that skillfully use photographic manipulation and painting composition, and has been showing them at art exhibitions and film festivals in Japan and abroad. She received the 26th Gotoh Cultural Award in 2015 and stayed in New York in 2016-17 with the grant, and had a solo exhibition at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Shinagawa, Tokyo in 2018.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011 The Bird in the Darkness, The Ashen White Shadow, Yuka Sasahara Gallery, Tokyo
2015 Still, AI KOWADA GALLERY, Tokyo
2016 Pendulum, Dillon+Lee, NewYork
2018 Mami Kosemura: Phantasies Over Time, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004 MOT Annual 2004 – Where do I come from? Where am I going?, Museum of Contemporary Art,Tokyo
2006 NIHONGA Painting: Six Provocative Artists, Yokohama Museum of Art, Kanagawa
2007 East of Eden: Gardens in Asian Art, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,Washington D.C.
2008 SELF and OTHER: Portraits from Asia and Europe, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka; The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, Kanagawa
2009 International Incheon Women Artists’ Biennale, Incheon Art Platform, South Korea
2009 Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2009, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography,Tokyo
2013 Final Jury at Image Forum Festival 2013, Park Tower Hall, Tokyo
2013 Single Channel Video Program by 5 Japanese Contemporary Artists (Related program of Darren Almond Second Thoughts), Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki
2013 Now Japan, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
2014 Kuandu Biennale 2014, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan
2016 Past Forward, video showing for The Hotel That Time Forgot composed by Paola Prestini [Performed by American Composers Orchestra], Carnegie Hall, NewYork
SELECTED AWARDS
2005 Nomura Art Prize, The Nomura Foundation
2015 The 26th Gotoh Cultural Award, The Tokyu Foundation
COLLECTIONS
Asian Society Museum, New York
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts
Gunma Museum of Art, Tatebayashi, Gunma
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei
Tokyo Midtown Galleria 3F, 9-7-4 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-5413-3501
Open 11am – 8pm