My Primal Memory by Nao Matsunaga

Last few days for this very interesting exhibition.

19 October- 13 December, Monday – Friday, 9:30am – 5:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery

In the exhibition My Primal Memory, Nao Matsunaga responds to his ideas and experiences of dual cultural and national identity, reflecting on his formative years growing up in Japan, and the latter part of his childhood in England. Although this is a deeply personal investigation, his work references ancient universal themes concerning the human condition.

…as people, we haven’t really changed at all over thousands of years, the way we interact, think and feel is still the same, even though the tools we use have changed.

By creating work using primal materials and tools, he connects on an emotional level with cultures from eras past, suggesting that there are certain constants in human behaviour that have not, and will not, change. With a sense of longing for a solid identity, Matsunaga attempts to find his way through the two cultures that make up his personality; responding to subconscious, primal drives in order to find a unifying whole.

Nao Matsunaga was born in Osaka in 1980, graduating with an MA in Ceramics and Glass from the Royal College of Art (2005–7) and he has exhibited internationally ever since. He has been presented with various awards and scholarships, such as the Jerwood Makers Open 2012, Cove Park Residency, the Anglo-Sweden Society Bursary and the Leverhume Trust’s grant. His works are in the public collection of the Crafts Council.  Matsunaga is  represented by Marsden Woo Gallery, London.

The Sea by Night and Day by Toru Kuwakubo

12 Sep 2012 to 14 Oct 2012

At the Japan House Gallery

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

The Sea by Night and Day is an exhibition containing a new body of work by Toru Kuwakubo. Following his VOCA awarded work, Study of Mom (2011), he explores the idea of the sea as the origin of life, in contrast to its associations with fear and destruction, especially in post-tsunami Japan. In this first solo show in London, Kuwakubo will experiment by dividing the exhibition spaces into day and night to invite viewers to navigate through his world.

Toru Kuwakubo’s work seeks to question the nature of artistic practice. In adopting the persona of fictional painter Kuwoud Bonet, a character inspired by the work of the Impressionists, Kuwakubo explores clichés of ‘Art’ and ‘The Artist’. His paintings depict everyday objects set within vibrant seascapes; their thick layers of richly coloured pigment imbuing a deep sense of nostalgia. Though originating from his personal experience, the paintings appear as if they are fiction from the artist’s mind.

Toru Kuwakubo was born in 1978 in Kanagawa, Japan. After graduating from Tama Art University in 2002, he was awarded the 3rd Koji Kinutani Prize by Mainichi Newspapers in 2011 and the VOCA Encouragement Prize in 2012. Selected exhibitions include Portrait Session, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima (2007), Out of Noise, GALLERY HYUNDAI, Gangnam Space, Seoul (2010), and Telling of Sea, Telling of Painter, Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo (2010). Kuwakubo’s work is included in major collections in Japan, including the Toyota Art Collection, Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Takahashi Collection, the Flowerman Collection and The Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company. Kuwakubo is represented by Tomio Koyama Gallery, Japan.

Daiwa Foundation Art Prize

8 Jun 2012 to 19 Jul 2012

Monday – Friday, 9:30am – 5:00pm

At the Japan House Gallery

Exhibition:

The three artists short listed for the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, introducing British artists to Japan, will exhibit their work at Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery in London from 8 June until 19 July 2012.  The winner of the £5,000 prize and the opportunity for a solo exhibition at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE  in Tokyo (16 November – 20 December), will be announced on 7 June. Download the exhibition catalogue here.

Image (left to right):
Tom Hammick, Germinate, 2012, oil on linen, 183 x 249cm, courtesy the artist and Eagle Gallery, London
Haroon Mirza, Installation shots of Digital Switchover at St.Gallen, 2012, mixed media, dimensions variable, courtesy the artist Photo: Gunnar Meier
Jennifer E. Price, Soixante-neuf, 2012, print, 472 x 238cm, courtesy the artist

The Shortlisted Artists

Tom Hammick studied MA Printmaking at Camberwell College of Art (1990). He has exhibited internationally in group and solo exhibitions including recent solo shows at Flowers Gallery, London, The Eagle Gallery, London, and Gallery Page and Strange, Canada (all 2011). He is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, Painting and Print at the University of Brighton. He lives in East Sussex. Although Hammick’s work references the real world, it is largely concerned with a sense of metaphorical journeying. His paintings and prints are often developed from observed drawings, but during the process of making the work these sources undergo significant transformations. (Artist’s website)

Haroon Mirza studied MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art & Design (2007). He was awarded the Northern Art Prize in 2010, and in 2011 has had a solo exhibition at the Lisson Gallery, London and participated in group exhibitions including Illuminations at the 54th Venice Biennale, Sum Parts at ACME Project Space, London and The British Art Show 7 at The Hayward Gallery, London. In his work, Mirza attempts to isolate the perceptual distinctions between noise, sound and music and explore the possibility of the visual and acoustic as one singular aesthetic form. These ideas are examined through lo-fi yet complex assemblages and installations that employ furniture, household electronics, video and existing artworks to formulate temporally based audio compositions. (Artist’s website)

Jennifer E. Price studied Printmaking at the University for the Creative Arts (2009) and has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, as part of International Print Biennale’s 2011 Print Awards. She lives and works in Kent. In her artwork Price harnesses basic and traditional printmaking methods, and then stands them on their head, resulting in cross boundaries of printmaking, drawing, sculpture, site-based installation, and public intervention. The work addresses complex layers of material culture and the role of the visual artist in a complicated age of media. (Artist’s website)

Jason James (Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation):

The Foundation is delighted to be hosting this exhibition, marking the second award of the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize. Launched in 2008, the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize aims to open doors for British artists in Japan, offering the winner a solo show in a top Japanese gallery, and complementing the access we provide for Japanese artists in our own gallery in London. The inaugural Prize was won by Marcus Coates, who held an extremely well-received solo exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo in November 2009, and whose career has continued to flourish on the international stage thereafter.

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation makes funding available across all fields to support closer links between the United Kingdom and Japan. We have a considerable track record of supporting the arts and enabling individuals and organisations from both countries to interact and cooperate on joint projects.

The Daiwa Foundation Art Prize evolved from discussions with the arts community as to how we might adopt a more proactive and innovative approach in engag-ing with contemporary art circles. Partnership with leading figures in the art world is an essential element of the Prize and we are particularly grateful to Masami Shiraishi of the Tokyo gallery scai the bathhouse for agreeing to host the solo exhibition by the winning artist this year. Shiraishi Contemporary Art Inc. (SCAI) was founded in 1989 and its gallery, SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, is a conversion of a former public bath-house in Tokyo. Mr Shiraishi has established himself over the last two decades as one of the leading figures in Japan’s contemporary art scene.

We have been gratified by the tremendous response to the Prize. This time round, there were over 700 applicants, and our expert judging panel, chaired by Jonathan Watkins, has selected artists of high calibre from all corners of the visual arts. The works by the three short-listed artists featured in this exhibition are conceptually rich and ripe for engagement with Japan. Warm thanks are due to the panel members – Jonathan Watkins (Director of Ikon Gallery, Birmingham), Martin Gayford (art critic and author), Mami Kataoka (Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), Tokyo, Grayson Perry (artist and 2003 Turner Prize winner), and Masami Shiraishi (President, SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo) – for so generously contributing their time, energy and insights through what was inevitably an arduous and intensive selection process.

The Trustees of the Foundation join me in offering congratulations to Tom Hammick, Haroon Mirza and Jennifer E. Price. We hope that, in awarding the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, we will not only open new doors for British artists in Japan but create valuable partnerships and opportunities for the future.

Book Launch: Obtaining Images – Art, Production and Display in Edo Japan by Prof Timon Screech

 

24 April 2012 from 6.30pm

The Edo period (1603–1868) witnessed one of the great flowerings of Japanese art. Towards the mid-seventeenth century, the Japanese states were largely at peace, and rapid urbanization, a rise in literacy and an increase in international contact ensued. The number of those able to purchase luxury goods, or who felt their social position necessitated owning them, soared. Painters and artists flourished and the late seventeenth century also saw a rise in the importance of printmaking. Obtaining Images introduces the reader to important artists and their work, but also to the intellectual issues and concepts surrounding the production, consumption and display of art in Japan in the Edo period. Rather than looking at these through the lens of European art, the book contextualizes the making and use of paintings and prints, elucidating how and why works were commissioned, where they were displayed and what special properties were attributed to them.

Timon Screech is Professor in the History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and, concurrently, Permanent Visiting Professor at Tama Art University, Tokyo. He is the author of several books on Japanese history and culture, including Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700–1820 (Reaktion, 1999) and The Shogun’s Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760–1829(Reaktion, 2000). Tim Clark, Keeper of Japanese Art at the British Museum will act as discussant at this event.

This event is presented in partnership with Reaktion Books, with this book having been awarded a grant under the Japan Foundation Support Programme for Publication on Japan.

 This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please e-mailevent@jpf.org.uk with your name, details and those of any guests.

Chiang Mai Fest 2012

March 23 to April 7, 2012
At the Three Kings Monument, Chiang Mai

Earth Wind and Fire and the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) are joining hands to reintroduce the Chiang Mai Fest to the cultural surroundings of the Three Kings Monument from March 23 to April 7, 2012.

Yut Wanichanond, Consultant of Earth Wind and Fire, said following a much-hyped inaugural year in 2011 as a three-day event, the Chiang Mai Fest would return this year with 16 days of packed programmes. “The Chiang Mai Fest 2012 will be even bigger, starting with the First International Street Painting Festival in Thailand,” he said.

The inaugural Street Painting Festival will bring in world-famous chalk painters such as Melanie Van Latum and Lysa Ashley from the USA and Tony Cuboliquido from Italy to turn streets, pavements and temporary walls at the Three Kings Monument into an outdoor art exhibition and workshop from March 23 to April 7.

The “Art on Street” exhibition will start with a curtain raiser at the Old District Court on Friday, 23 March from 17.00 to 18.00 hrs. The Chiang Mai Fest 2012 will also reintroduce the city’s first and only International Music Festival from April 6- 7.

In its second year, the two-day event will feature world-class performances by international artists such as German contemporary singer Thomas Kiessling, South African opera – classic pop crossover male vocal group Il Quinto, American Blues and Soul revivalist band Blues Brothers and Thai musical maestro Neung Jakkawal.

Last year, the three-day Chiang Mai Fest attracted nearly 10,000 visitors and generated 150 million Baht revenue to Chiang Mai, as well as boosted tourists’ length of stay in the city from 2 to 15 days during the Songkran Festival.

“This year, we expect the 16-day Chiang Mai Fest to attract over 35,000 local and international visitors and help to generate some 200-300 million Baht in tourism-related revenue,” Yut Wanichanond added.

Mr Wiwatchai Boonyapak, Events Department Director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, said the Chiang Mai Fest 2012 would attract more tourists to Chiang Mai between late-March and early-April in addition to the expected high turnouts during the Songkran Festival.

“The Chiang Mai Fest 2012 will boost tourism revenue and raise the image of Chiang Mai as the centre of international music, art and culture,” Mr Wiwatchai said.

For more information, please contact
Tel: +66 (0) 53 292 224
E-mail: info@wind-and-fire.com
Web site: www.chiangmaifest.com

Boundaries

Boundaries  

Glen House

125-133 Old Brompton Road

London SW7 3RP

+44 (0) 20 7788 7658

http://www.gazelliarthouse.com

Info@gazelliarthouse.com

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Twitter @gazelliarthouse

Facebook – Gazelli Art House

Farid Rasulov    Hyo Myoung   Kim Jane McAdam Freud      Littlewhitehead     Yoonjin   Jung

C99 Art Project, 99 Chamberlayne Road, Kensal Rise, London NW10 3DN

December 2011 – January 2012

Boundaries is a collaboration between Gazelli Art House and C99 Art Project run by the architectural company,  Newman Zieglmeier.  The exhibition looks at the creative limitations (boundaries), if any, imposed through curatorial or architectural briefs. Through context, material and artistic process the exhibition explores the tension between art and architecture. Boundaries focuses on the works exhibited throughout 2011 by Gazelli Art House and tells a story of obstacles the artists had to overcome.

More information here.

 

Support for the Arts in the UK and Japan

This seventh seminar in the 2011 series, Uncertain Futures: The Individual, Society and the State in the UK and Japan, will consider the issues surrounding support for the arts in the UK and Japan. In recent years, arts funding in both the UK and Japan has undergone severe cuts and dramatic changes. Colin Tweedy, Chief Executive of Arts & Business, and Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, will explore the current landscape and look to the future in assessing the impact of spending cuts and priorities for supporting the arts in these uncertain times.

Colin Tweedy

Colin Tweedy OBE is the Chief Executive of Arts & Business. He is also Chairman of CEREC (Comité Européen pour le Rapprochement de l’Economie et de la Culture). He is a Trustee of the Headlong Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre Trust, the Serpentine Gallery and The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts. Colin Tweedy is also a director of The Ideas Foundation, a Council member of the National Musicians Symphony Orchestra and a Governor of the University for the Creative Arts. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). In 2000 he received an OBE for services to business partnerships with the arts in The Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Mami Kataoka

Mami Kataoka has been the Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum (MAM) in Tokyo since 2003. She is currently overseeing many international projects, including the 9th Gwangju Biennale 2012 in South Korea as the Joint Artistic Director, and Phantoms of Asia at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as guest curator. She was the International Curator at the Hayward Gallery in London between 2007 and 2009, curated Laughing in the Foreign Language(2008) and co-curated Walking in My Mind (2009). Kataoka frequently writes and gives lectures on contemporary art in Asia.

Jenny White (Chair)

Jenny White has 25 years’ experience of producing arts projects in UK, Latin America, East Asia and Japan. After working as manager of Scotland’s Communicado Theatre, she first encountered the British Council, and worked with them, initially in Japan for ten years, introducing contemporary British artists and programming two UK-Japan festivals UK90 and UK98, and then in Thailand and in London, as Head of Arts Development. From 2006-2009, she was Director of the British Council in Cuba, hosting the visit of the Royal Ballet and producing UK’s contribution to the Latin American Film Festival and the Habana Biennial of Art. She is currently on assignment to manage the Environmental impact of British Council’s global cultural relations work. With a lifelong interest in Japan and the intersection between Japanese and British cultures, Jenny will draw on her experience to contribute to this topical debate for both the UK and Japan.

19 October 2011

6:00 – 7:45pm, followed by a drinks reception to 8:45pm

Daiwa Foundation Japanese House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

BOOKING FORM

Art Weapons: Artist Talk by Tsuyoshi Ozawa

Tsuyoshi Ozawa is an intriguing Japan-grown contemporary artist. His works challenge the establishment and people’s existing systems, as well as perceptions about their daily lives. Yet Ozawa also approaches these issues with both gentle humour and clever irony, quite often throwing his viewers, with great relish, into a maze of the actual and the virtual: for example in works such as his Museum of Soy Sauce Art, a parodic look at Japanese art history, or his long running Vegetable Weapons project. Despite a conventional education at art university in Japan, where he studied painting, Ozawa, from the start of his artistic career, has always resisted creating his work in an isolated environment. He frequently collaborates with other artists, and often draws on audience participation, using his work as a kind of “art weapon” for opening dialogue.

In this artist talk, Tsuyoshi Ozawa will reveal to the UK audience for the first time the unique artistic path he has walked over the past decades, explaining the creative process behind many of his compelling works. In a discussion to follow, he will be joined by Adrian Favell, Professor of Sociology in Paris and a writer on Japanese contemporary art, to further examine Ozawa’s relation to contemporary Japanese society, his significance in a global context, and issues of “relational art” in his work, part of an important trend in contemporary art practice.

20 September 2011 from 6.30pm

The Japan Foundation, London
Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square
London WC1B 5EH

This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk.

Private view: The Light Field

Private view details:

14 September 2011, 6:00 – 8:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

BOOKING FORM

Exhibition information:

13 Sep 2011 – 20 Oct 2011

The Light Field

This first London exhibition by the Japanese artist, Daisuke Ohba, showcases his unique ‘light field’ paintings, achieved through the use of iridescent pearl paint to produce continual transformations, image shifts, and colour transitions, as the light varies or as the viewer moves.

Daisuke Ohba is a Japanese artist based inTokyo. One of the attractions of Ohba’s art is his use of iridescent pearl paint, ever-changing image shifts and colour transition as the light varies or as the viewer moves. By developing this relationship with the viewer, Ohba has been discovering new possibilities in pictorial space. Facing one of these works, the viewer is in the presence of a dazzling world of light, which seems to be produced somewhere beyond the canvas. This pictorial space can be thought of as a “light field”, which gives the exhibition its name.

Ohba was born in Shizuoka in 1981 and received his MFA at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He was awarded the Shell Art Prize in 2004. His recent exhibition in Tokyo, The Light Field, was held as a joint exhibition by two galleries, SCAI THE BATHHOUSE and Magical ARTROOM. Ohba has been extensively showing in group exhibitions nationally and internationally including Vivid Material at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, THE ECHO at ZAIM in Yokohama in 2008, VOCA 2010 at The Ueno Royal Museum, and Toki- no-Yuenchiat Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Aichi. His works are found in collections of The Pigozzi (New York), Japan Airlines and Dries Van Noten (Tokyo).

The artist will be introduced by Keith Whittle, International Projects Associate, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and Japan Foundation Fellow.

68th Venice Film Festival

31st August to 10th September 2011

The 68th Venice International Film Festival, organized by La Biennale di Venezia, will run at Venice Lido August 31st through September 10th, 2011.

The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote all the various aspects of international cinema in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and tolerance. The Festival includes retrospectives and homages to major figures as a contribution towards raising awareness of the history of cinema.

Marco Müller is the Director the 68th edition. He has been heading the Venice Biennale’s Cinema section since 2004.

For further information see here.

Everything happens for the first time – Katsumi Omori

19 August 2011 – 02 September 2011

198 Contemporary Arts and Learning, London

Everything happens for the first time is the first solo exhibition in the UK by Katsumi Omori, a leading Japanese photographer.  For the last ten years, Omori has undertaken a project to photograph the challenging subject of Cherry Blossom, symbolically important in Japan, and revered for its short and brilliant blooming season. He followed the Cherry Blossom this spring from Tokyo and Urayasu to Fukushima, and various other areas that severely suffered during the Tsunami, earthquake and nuclear plant accidents in March.

For more information, please click here.

Japanese Enamels: The Seven Treasures

Gregory Irvine
Senior Curator Asian Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Monday 15^th August 6.45 pm

School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
Khalili Lecture Theatre
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square

Free – booking recommended

‘There are two distinct qualities or types expressed in Japanese art: one suggesting endless patience in the execution of minute detail, the other denoting a momentary conception of some fleeting idea carried out with boldness and freedom of expression in form and line – profuse complexity and extreme simplicity… the work on Japanese cloisonné ware generally exhibits the quality suggestive of unwearying labour and patience.’ (Harada Jiro, The Studio, 1911)

The characters used for Shippo, the Japanese term for enamels, are a reference to the Seven Treasures mentioned in Buddhist texts. The Japanese applied this term to the rich colours found on Chinese enamels and to those made later in Japan. The art of cloisonné enamelling was, from the late 1850s, one of Japan’s most successful forms of manufacture. The peak of artistic and technological sophistication was between 1880 and 1910, a period referred to as the ‘Golden Age’, and a time when the taste for Japan in the West was at its height and museums were avidly acquiring from dealers and international exhibitions.

The combining of the V&A’s historical collection (including examples acquired at the Paris International Exposition of 1867, the earliest documented cloisonné enamels in any world collection) with the recent generous gift of Japanese enamels from Mr Edwin Davies, OBE, enables the V&A to present a rounded picture of one of Japan’s most exquisite art forms in an exhibition that will be held in the V&A’s Japan Gallery from 14 June 2011 – 19 August 2012.

The lecture will discuss enamels from their early use as architectural fittings, through elegant inlaid metalwork of the late 17th century and into the Golden Age and the 20th century. It will explore objects from the renaissance of Japanese enamelling in the 1840s; the experimental works of the 1850s and 1860s and the rise of master artists such as Hayashi Kodenji, Namikawa Yasuyuki of Kyoto, Namikawa Sosuke of Tokyo and the output of the creative, innovative and prolific Ando Cloisonné Company of Nagoya.

Gregory Irvine is Senior Curator in the Asian Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and is principally responsible for the collections of Japanese metalwork, focusing on arms, armour and cloisonné enamels. He has visited Japan on many occasions to carry out research at museums, temples, shrines and in private collections.

Publications include Japanese Cloisonné: the Seven Treasures: V&A Publications, London, 2006; A Guide to Japanese Art Collections in the UK, Japan Society/Hotei, 2004; Collecting Japanese art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Arts of Asia, Volume 39, Number 4, July – August 2009 and most recently Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, V&A Publications, London, 2011.

To reserve your place, please call the Japan Society office on 020 7828 6330 or email events@japansociety.org.uk or submit the online booking form

Co-organised by:

Atsuko Tanaka The Art of Connecting

Atsuko Tanaka The Art of Connecting.

27 July 2011 from 6.30pm

Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005) is without doubt one of Japan’s most important avant-garde artists. As a former member of the Gutai artist group which was founded in 1954, Tanaka has challenged the conventional notions of art through her powerful works including the iconic “Electric Dress”. Whether it be in paintings, sculpture, electric sound and light installations, or performance pieces, a commonality to Tanaka’s work is a distinct realism closely corresponding to her choice of materials.

In conjunction with, and celebration of, the UK’s first comprehensive exhibition of Atsuko Tanaka at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, the Japan Foundation has invited two of the exhibition’s curators, Mizuho Kato, Visiting Associate Professor, Museum of Osaka University and former Chief Curator of Ashiya City Museum of Art and History in Japan, and Jonathan Watkins, Director of Ikon Gallery, to introduce the life and work of Atsuko Tanaka. As well as discussing the significance of the exhibition which covers the breadth of Tanaka’s career from her earliest works up to paintings completed just before her death, they will also highlight Tanaka’s achievements and their continued relevance to our contemporary visual world.

The Japan Foundation, London

Russell Square House, 10-12 Russell Square
London WC1B 5EH

Booking: This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk.

Miró

Miró

Tate Modern 14 April  –  11 September 2011

About the exhibition

Joan Miró’s works come to London in the first major retrospective here for nearly 50 years. Renowned as one of the greatest Surrealist painters, filling his paintings with luxuriant colour, Miró worked in a rich variety of styles. This is a rare opportunity to enjoy more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of his extraordinary career.

Miró is among the most iconic of modern artists, using a language of symbols that reflects his personal vision, sense of freedom, and energy. The exhibition includes many of the key works that we know and love. It also shows that, behind the engaging innocence of his imagery, lies a profound concern for humanity and a sense of personal and national identity. Extraordinary works from different moments of his career celebrate his roots in his native Catalonia.

The exhibition also traces an anxious and politically engaged side to Miró’s work that reflects his passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history. Working in Barcelona and Paris, Miró tracked the mood of the Spanish Civil War and the first months of the Second World War in France. Under the political restrictions of Franco’s Spain, Miró remained a symbol of international culture, and his grand abstract paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s became a mark of resistance and integrity in the dying years of the regime. Telling the story of Miró’s life and the time he witnessed reveals a darker intensity to many of his works.

This is a must-see exhibition for 2011, filled with astonishing, beautiful and striking paintings by one of the greats of modern art.

See Miro for free and get fast track entry as a Member – join now!

Please note if the exhibition does get very busy Members may be asked to wait 5 or 10 minutes before entering.

Situated Senses 01 : Inclined Angles at Hanmi Gallery

HANMI GALLERY INTERIM EXHIBITION
20 May – 05 June 2011
Situated Senses 01 : Inclined Angles

Situated Senses introduces contemporary artists who focus on the theme of space, in particular site-specificity. They present experimental form of artwork closely related to the specific feature of a space which is differentiated from the typical form of exhibit spaces.

Situated Senses presents two prominent contemporary Korean artists, Shan Hur and Soon-Hak Kwon. Hur and Kwon have created a unique situation in a void space where its original use was far removed from the traditional meaning of exhibit spaces.

The space was built to be a design office in the 1980s and there are plans to transform it into a gallery space (HANMI GALLERY) in the near future. In the meantime, the plan is to use this space for artistic trials and experimentations by talented young artists. In this way, the empty space becomes a laboratory and the artists become practitioners.

Exhibition Dates : 20 May – 05 June 2011
Opening Hours : Monday – Friday 10AM-6PM, Saturday – Sunday 11AM – 6PM
Private View : Friday 20 May 6 – 8PM
Curated by Jay Jungin Hwang (Independent Curator)

Artists Information
Shan Hur (b.1980) graduated from Seoul National University with B.F.A in sculpture and Slade School of Fine Art with M.F.A in sculpture. He had one solo exhibition and participated in several group exhibitions in London. He won 1st prize in ‘The Open West (Gloucestershire, UK, 2011)’ and was awarded in ‘Brighton University Art faculty Prize (UK, 2007).’ He works and lives in London.

Soon-Hak Kwon (b.1979) graduated from University of Incheon College of Fine Arts with B.F.A in painting, Hongik University with M.F.A in photography and Royal College of Art with MA in photography. He had four solo exhibitions and participated in several group exhibitions in Seoul, London, and Paris. He won gold prize in ‘29th Competition of Chang-Jark Arts’ Association (Korea, 2004)’, a prize for ‘Selected Artist’ in ‘28th Joong-Ang Fine Arts Prize (Korea, 2006).’ He works and lives in London.

HANMI GALLERY
30 Maple Street,
London W1T 8HA
United Kingdom
T +44 (0)2082 864 426
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