18 January – 23 February 2013
Haroon Mirza, 2012 Daiwa Foundation Art Prize Winner, Solo exhibition at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE in Tokyo
We are delighted to present this solo exhibition by Haroon Mirza at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE in Tokyo, Japan. As the winner of the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize 2012, Mirza was given the opportunity to have this exhibition in Tokyo. Partnerships have been central to the successful realisation of the Art Prize and we are very grateful to Masami Shiraishi, President of SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, for agreeing to host this exhibition. I am confident that Mirza’s work will resonate strongly with Japanese audiences, and I hope also that his experiences in Japan will offer new inspirations for his artistic practice.
The Daiwa Foundation Art Prize aims to open doors in Japan for British artists. From over 700 initial applications, Haroon Mirza, Tom Hammick and Jennifer E. Price were shortlisted by our expert panel of judges – Jonathan Watkins, Mami Kataoka, Masami Shiraishi, Martin Gayford and Grayson Perry. Work by the short-listed artists was shown at the Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery in London in June and July 2012.
The Trustees of the Foundation join me in offering congratulations to Haroon Mirza. We hope that, in awarding the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize and holding this exhibition at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, we will not only open new doors for British artists in Japan but also create valuable partnerships and opportunities for the future.
Jason James, Director General, Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
Art and Music and Haroon Mirza
“I was brought up Muslim … In certain regimes [in Islam] music is sort of frowned upon and related to things like infidelity and other terrible things if you listen to or engage with music”
By Haroon Mirza
Haroon Mirza’s commitment to sound, to music in particular, is an intelligent challenge not only to the dogma of organized religion, but also to the institution of art. In Mirza’s work, music counteracts the religious tendencies in art, challenging the faith required to persist with the notion that art is somehow transcendent and distinct from everyday life.
Our ears, unlike our eyes, do not have lids. Waves of sound break through. Music is irresistible, undeniable, leaking in to affect us, insinuating, and pervasive. As a constant factor in the aesthetic equations devised by Haroon Mirza, music subtly contradicts the notion of a self-contained work of art, beautiful and true in itself. Our response to music stems from association, from the countless ideas and emotions we bring to our encounter with it, which can also be said of visual art.
Found objects, readymade and often ready-used, likewise occur in Mirza’s work as signs of free thinking, a philosophical scepticism that is, frankly, one of the only redeeming features of art. He knows, as we know, that the final artistic destinations of found objects were never envisaged by their makers, and so it becomes clear that this business of art is a question both of (our imaginative) projection and co-option. This applies as much to found objects that are works of art in their own right, and sounds that are music. All is revealed as being wonderfully unfixed.
Haroon Mirza was brought up Muslim. We were all brought up within some kind of prescriptive structure – be it ideological, religious and/or political – which insists that certain thoughts, tastes and behaviours are simply not acceptable. Art can be like that too, negative and dull. Haroon Mirza’s work, on the other hand, is life-affirming and positive.
Jonathan Watkins, Director Ikon Gallery
Haroon Mirza- Winner of the 2012 Daiwa Foundation Art Prize
Haroon Mirza gained an MA in Fine Art at ChelseaCollegeof Art & Design with a Lynda Brockbank Scholarship (2007). He was awarded the Northern Art Prize 2010 and the Silver Lion for most promising young artist at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011. He has participated in notable exhibitions including The British Art Show 7 (2011) organised by Hayward Touring, Preoccupied Waveforms (2012) at theNewMuseum inNew York, and the ninthGwangju Biennale inKorea.
Through his work, Mirza attempts to isolate the perceptual distinctions between noise, sound and music. He explores the potentiality for the visual and the acoustic to come together 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 audio compositions with a temporal basis.
Image: Haroon Mirza, Digital Switchover, 2012 installation view of |||| ||, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, 2012 Courtesy of the artist, and SCAI THE BATHHOUSE Photo by Gunner Meier
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