Yuko Shiraishi Signal
11 September - 26 October 2013
Annely Juda Fine Art 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) London W1S 1AW ajfa@annelyjudafineart.co.uk www.annelyjudafineart.co.uk Tel 020 7629 7578 Fax 020 7491 2139 Monday - Friday 10 - 6 Saturday 11 - 5
YUKO SHIRAISHI: NETHERWORLD The discovery of the tomb of Tuthankhamun, with its remarkably intact contents, generated great popular interest, and still does. The contrast between the New Kingdom boy-king, whose small mummified body lies mutely at the centre of it all, and the enormous detail that the contents of the tomb offered up for interpretation, is one of the great tales of archaeology. Yuko Shiraishi uses the dimensions and the structure of this tomb for her newest installation, Netherworld, for non-archaeological reasons. Her principal point of departure was not the romantic tale of the excavation but the British Museum's 2010 exhibition of the Book of the Dead, the collections of spells and charms that codify the changing patterns of ancient Egyptian thinking over many thousands of years. She read deeply into the Egyptians' religious belief and cosmology, and started to link their ideas about death and life, mortality and vitality, to her existing absorption in many aspects of science. This focus on science and philosophy has coincided with her experimentation with paintings characterised by points in a unified field rather than by the horizontal lines that had previously preoccupied her, and which had proved capable of sustaining such rich variation. Over recent years a new stage, and a new sense of space, have opened up, and she has made a wider range of drawings and studies than before. These drawings have taken on a new significance in Shiraishi's development of her work, and show a spirit of restless formal exploration. Many such drawings are part of her research for Netherworld; they also illuminate the changes in the ambitions of the paintings. In particular they exemplify drawing as a mode of thinking and of modelling forms of thought – a two-way process. Drawings that attempt to structure models of mythic and religious systems, the cycles of star formation, and the process of programmed cell death (apoptosis), in turn suggest forms that can be used for thinking that floats free of the functions of explanation. Many of these drawings are based on the circle. The deep appeal of simple diagrammatic forms, especially when they do not fully explain ambiguous relationships between, say, two dimensions and three, or three dimensions and four, is vividly exploited in these studies. They also display a striking contrast between the very small scale and the very large, in that their titles include frankly metaphysical proposals such as World, Star and Body. While investigating what has changed in this new stage of her work as a painter, it is also worth noting what has not changed. The format is still, in most cases, a vertically emphasised rectangle. This slight adjustment of the absolute mathematical square to a taller format preserves a particular relationship with the vertical emphasis of the viewer as he or she stands before the painting. It provides a sense of reciprocal mirroring of a basic fact of standing that, allied to her confident and knowledgeable control of colour, gives all of her paintings a steadying and sustaining power. Artists repeat themselves; it is a sign that an artistic proposal is being made. They also change. The pleasures of experiencing Shiraishi's work in this new stage are consistent with her earlier work, but the way those mental and physical pleasures are brought about suggests that the paintings depend on a new aspect of engagement. The move apparently described by the words, 'a move from lines to points', is also, I think, a move to a new kind of potential space in the paintings; a space where interpretation – thinking, in simple terms, about what it is that we see – interacts with and interferes with the evidence of our senses, in a productive way.
A relationship between points is not the same as a relationship between horizontal lines. The relationship between points on a flat plane, when that flat plane can also be read spatially, is ambiguous. The size and colour of the point will make it recede or advance, in a consistent or variable way, against other points. This is something we experience again and again in looking at Shiraishi's new paintings: implied relationships that do not settle into fixity. We look at the points, attempt to grasp how they connect, and often sense an implied figure, a central form that could be the principle of organisation for what we see – but because some of the points are vestigial, and vanish when not stared at, the figure remains tantalisingly changeable and motile. The sense of space in these new paintings differs from the horizontally organised works because it is frankly bigger. Although at first sight there is less in them, when we begin to perceive something, it is less abstract, and more like a centrally organised figure: not a human figure, perhaps something crystalline or molecular. Here is the largest painting in the group: a silvery grey ground animated by four points, two in pink, two in white, apparently defining the figure of a rectangle. It is untypical of the new paintings in its apparent simplicity, but the points are not in fact precisely aligned on the vertical axis. The painting is part of a universe of movement, not of settled geometry. One smaller painting, Four, is legible and immediately comprehensible as a slightly flattened square, made by four green points visible through a layer of pink overpainting. But each of the four points that define this rectangle is ghosted by a larger disc, a vestigial presence of red, just visible under the layer of pink. So even with a painting that is untypical of the group, and which offers an apparently simple rectilinear figure, a degree of uncertainty is created about what it is we see. The regularity is pulled and questioned by an only partially perceptible irregularity, with which it is twinned. These are figures, but they preserve a dynamic relationship with their ground, which is itself a field of variable texture, colour, transparency, opacity and energy. The relationship between figure and ground is never simple. There is a strong analogy for looking at these paintings in the experience of looking at stars. Diagrams of constellations flatten out interstellar space to isolate a legible, memorable, two-dimensional form; but when looking at the night sky itself the variable magnitude and colour of the stars means we intuit, correctly or not, spatial relationships in depth, as well as the familiar or half-remembered name for what we see. However, the paintings offer only an analogy to looking at stars, they are in no way a representation of the night sky. The colour of the points or discs suggests an analogy with molecular models, and thus with visualisation and construction rather than with human vision. The colour relationships that remain the focus of Shiraishi's judgment and craft as a painter give us, at the same time, much for human vision to work on, and this interacts and interferes with the ideational space of diagrams, models and three-dimensional figures. Jinsang Yoo writes: 'For Shiraishi, the possibility of painterly colours is not limited to the properties of pigment but can be enlarged into a reciprocal network that comprises all the matter that makes up the universe. Colour is not simply paint but rather an optical mediator, and its allure is mirrored within the fundamental interconnectedness of the universe.'1 In describing the experience of these paintings I have used the word point, which suggests something geometrical, though many other words might be better – spots, which suggest solar activity or visual interference in the eye; discs, which suggest two-dimensionality, the space of the diagram; dots, which suggest indistinctness and irregularity and with that energy; or specks, which suggest dust and matter. Many of what I call points are drawn in one colour, then painted in another, which does suggest that they are discs; some are only drawn circles,
and are hardly there (dark matter, perhaps; or an equivalent of stars of the sixth magnitude, the faintest visible with the naked eye). Descriptive language fails cheerfully before this problem: there is not a right word for what I have called the 'points'. The paintings using points and relationships are something new in Shiraishi's work. There are nevertheless important areas of continuity. Sometimes, within the puzzles these paintings set for grasping, interpreting and holding onto a sense of 'figure', you become aware that there are possible connections between the points on the horizontal plane. You follow the line across. Does it match up? It is not always possible to say. One of the points becomes indistinct, or appears more strongly drawn into another relationship, another line of force. The years of work Shiraishi has put into exploring horizontality, as a deeply grounded aspect of being, are not abandoned in these new paintings. The implicit structures are often based on procedures of ruling and on horizontal lines, however vestigial the sense of this is for the viewer when looking at the final painting. These are paintings that suggest cosmic space, and are also grounded. In Netherworld, four portals or doors are fitted tightly inside each other, each with angled indications of structure at the top that suggest an unfamiliar architecture. They seem to be exploded enlargements of a central rectilinear form: each is an outline, one side of something larger. Only the innermost is clearly shown as part of a complete box-like shape. At the centre of it, resting on the gallery floor, is a diagrammatic suggestion of a recumbent human shape. So we are perhaps in some kind of tomb or sanctuary. The daylight from above is filtered into dim blue, and three lamps shine down, slowly changing their colour. Ancient Egyptian tombs include what must be the first sculptures of false doors. Netherworld also seems to have false doors: the three outer portals exist as a set of entrances tightly jammed each within the other, not as entrances you can actually enter. The sense of an exploded, transparent form perhaps suggests a screen object that can be manipulated at will, but the physical encounter with this interlocked diagrammatic shape, and the peculiar scale and detailing, suggest something else. Each portal is differently structured, not simply a smaller version of the one it is nested inside and connected to. There is no way through here, but the space around the form can be entered. We can carefully circumnavigate, approach the figure from all angles. We can stay here, not to pry and intrude, but to share the space with whatever we think the resting form is, as the lamps adjust the light shining on it through a cycle of slow changes. The structures that I have described as portals are made precisely from the measurements of one side of each of the four gilded wooden shrines, each of which fitted inside each other. The largest of these was fitted in a tomb chamber that left only 60cm at each end and 30cm on either side, and almost entirely filled the available space. The installation allows us to get close if we choose, but the human reaction to the idea of a tomb is strong. Tombs tend to be cramped and small – rooms for one occupant only. Even when built as public displays or mausolea, with spaces for visitors to approach, you do not tend to stay long in them. The walk-in tomb of Noel Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeois, which is incorporated into Dulwich Picture Gallery, colours daylight into unexpected dim yellow. It is the light, as much as the surprising presence of the sarcophagi, that creates such a strong atmosphere when you enter from the beautifully lit picture galleries. Shiraishi's installation, like Soane's permanent building, depends on a simple transformation of daylight for its primary effect, that
of entering another world – here it is a bluish, night-time world. It is a world like ours but perhaps suggesting different rules or possibilities. Colours that we tend, intuitively, to attribute to objects as a primary rather than a secondary property, are revealed as changeable. Your eyes take time to adjust to what you see, as the altered daylight interacts with the light of the three lamps. What you see is a figure that is lying down. This figure is modelled on the mummy of Tutankhamun, but generalised and abstracted into a figure of transformation. Shiraishi has long had an interest in 'the physical acts of sitting and standing' as phenomenological givens of our relationship to space and to the world. To these interests her latest installation adds the act of lying down. A figure lying on its back is a customary way in which death is represented in western culture, and in particular in church monuments. The association of death with peaceful sleep is a strong one, but the position in which the sculpted dead are usually placed, lying straight and horizontal, is not the way most people sleep, curled up on one side. The dead are placed on their backs to remain alert and ready for the moment of resurrection. They may have their eyes open; more usually they are portrayed sleeping. In Egypt, through thousands of years in which short generations quickly succeeded each other, the dead were represented with their eyes wide open. The constant experience of change and of the shortness of human life was in sharp contrast with the infinitesimally small changes in art production. Wide open eyes seem to be a constant through the whole culture. On the shaped coffin lids (often now displayed bolt upright), the scrolls, the shrines and sculptures in the British Museum's Egyptian galleries, I have not found an image of the dead with eyes closed. Death was considered as another stage of existence, in which the power of seeing was clearly needed. The figure in Netherworld does not have a face we can see. Shiraishi has engaged deeply with ancient Egyptian thought, not to reproduce it, but as part of a material and aesthetic enquiry. The interest of what it means to lie down is first of all a physical and experiential one: the act of lying straight on your back is also part of life. When you lie on your back on grass, looking at the sky, the transfer of your weight to the earth is complete. It is a feeling of being completely supported – and it is a very particular way of feeling fully alive. You become aware of your being on the planet as it turns, and of the wind moving the clouds directly above you. If you are trying this at night, you will find it is one of the best ways to look at stars. One of the liberating things about lying flat in this way is that you do not choose where to look. You just look.2 The figure is balanced, securely and delicately, on its back. At the same time its structure – three concentric bands of steel in the horizontal plane, interlocked with three arranged vertically – implies physics more than it does biology. Directed to its centre − its heart − is the cycle of slowly changing light. The changes are derived from the conventional colours for representing the life cycle of a star. The celestial bodies that have been humankind's companions since before recorded history are thus incorporated into the figure's body and its heart.3 Shiraishi's figure lies ambiguously in a state of suspended or somehow altered animation. This is not a flat representation of death as finite, and neither is it a representation of life. Shiraishi brings together ancient Egyptian thinking about life and death – the sun god's journey through darkness and the netherworld – with aspects of normative contemporary science. We are made from star-matter. The physical continuity of matter, from the raw materials of stars, to life (and consciousness, something that has evolved) and to whatever lies beyond life, is something Shiraishi regards as worthy of our strong interest – and our
wonder. She sees the broad coincidences between contemporary scientific descriptions of the cycle of matter and ancient intuitions about the cosmos (in forms of thought otherwise regarded as obsolete), as raising profoundly interesting questions. According to Barbara L端scher, the writings we know as the Book of the Dead 'can best be translated as "Spells for Coming Forth by Day", referring to the wish to emerge safely from the tomb in a spiritualised form.'4 However, this wish was clearly understood as only to be granted for a select few. As so often with systems whose aesthetic legacy continues to fascinate, the ancient Egyptian imperial structure was crushing and autocratic. For millennia it maintained a hierarchical division of labour that was a tragic waste of human lives. There are footstools from Tutankhamun's tomb that show this enthusiasm for domination with absolute clarity. Each is decorated with foreign slaves, lying down in rows, head to head, to be trodden upon by the supreme king.5 These prostrate figures can perhaps be seen as a counterversion of the motif of the mummified figure lying down, whose ba ('spirit') could travel forth by day: figures who, in life, endured absolute domination. Egypt sits at one end of the traditional story of art, through which its thinking about the uncertain relationship between death and life has remained visible. In Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts, Alo誰s Riegl wrote: 'No obsolete worldview, once overcome, vanishes instantly from the face of the earth. Although it might not persevere as a deep-rooted conviction, it can, thanks to the pressure of tradition, continue to reverberate for centuries in outer forms. These forms play the most important role in the visual arts.'6 Ancient Egyptian art and thought have had a particularly long and curious afterlife, and remain potent in the imagery and imagination of our own culture. Shiraishi's engagement with ancient Egyptian thought is part of the democratic culture of the contemporary museum, where mummies have for a long time been significant ways to learn about death (as have pets). The galleries at the British Museum are always filled with the sound of children. This is not the kind of afterlife the Egyptians sought or can have expected, but we can be glad about it. Yuko Shiraishi has synthesised from Egyptian art and thought (perhaps deliberately against the grain of actual Egyptian history) aspects of excited, speculative thinking about the cosmos, and linked these to a contemporary scientific worldview and an almost sciencefiction future. Netherworld allows for uncertainties about our relationship to our world and time to be felt. She has located in particular a mysterious sense of coexisting times, day-night or night-day, times of generation and change, that reverberate with her continued journey as a maker of paintings. Ian Hunt, September 2013 1. Jinsang Yoo, 'Yuko Shiraishi: Ramification of Colors', in Yuko Shiraishi: Space Space, Seoul: Kukje Gallery, 2012, p.8 2. One of the few representations of this liberatory angle of view, straight upwards, is, paradoxically enough, in Carl Dreyer's film Vampyr (1932). The hero has in some way been separated from his body, which he leaves slumbering in a seated position near a graveyard. Taking flight from it as a spectral form, he journeys to a workshop in which he discovers his own body now placed in a coffin with its eyes open, dead or in a paralysed state. The camera then sees, from within the coffin, the glass plate above his head screwed into place; and then we see through his eyes, straight upward: faces, including
that of the vampyr herself, an ancient white-haired woman. The coffin is then carried past buildings, trees, open sky, all seen from the coffin. It's an unforgettable prospect of the space above our heads and of life – as you have never before seen it, but through the eyes of one who fears being buried alive. Fortunately the coffin is carried past the figure's own doubled body, still slumped as he left it, and his spirit reunites with it in time to prevent his other body being buried. The theology of this – two bodies apparently sharing only one soul – is at least as complex as ancient Egyptian thought about the ka and the ba (see note 3). It is also a film that seems take place at a mysterious time that is neither day nor night, but which could somehow be photographed. 3. 'Many societies, ancient and modern, have conceived of the person as comprising body and spirit (or "soul"). The view of the ancient Egyptians was more complex. For them, the individual was a composite of different aspects, which they called kheperu, or modes of existence. Prominent among these were the physical body and its most important organ, the heart. The heart – rather than the brain – was regarded as the functional centre of the person's being and also the site of the mind or intelligence. The name and the shadow were also important, as each embodied the individual essence of the person. Everyone also possessed spirit aspects called the ka and the ba. Both of these concepts are challenging to interpret. They have no precise equivalents in modern thought, and since their characters evolved through time the Egyptians' own understanding of then changed. The ka is often associated with the life-force. It was passed on from parent to child down the generations, but it was also personal to every individual, a kind of 'double', which is often represented in art as an exact copy of the owner. After death the ka remained at the tomb, where it was nourished by food offerings. The ba was the nearest equivalent to the modern notion of the "soul". To a greater extent than the ka, the ba represented the personality. It remained with its owner during life, but after death it acquired special importance. It had the ability to move freely and independently of the body, and hence could leave the tomb by day. Probably on account of this characteristic the ba was regularly depicted as a human-headed bird. This form also emphasised the ba's ability to transform itself into different shapes, particularly various kinds of birds. The freedom of movement of the ba is a constant theme of the Book of the Dead, many spells asserting that the deceased would go forth from the tomb as a living ba. It was required, however, to be return each night to be reunited with the mummy.' John H. Taylor (author and editor), 'Life and Afterlife in the Ancient Egyptian Cosmos', Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, London: British Museum Press, 2010, p.17. 4. Ibid., p.288. 5. Marianne Eaton-Krauss, The Thrones, Chairs, Stools and Footstools from the Tomb of Tutankhamun; incorporating the records made by Walter Segal, Oxford: Griffith Institute, 2008. The tomb included the most complete set of ancient Egyptian furniture in existence. The measured drawings, photographs and notes by the German architect Walter Segal date from his expedition to Egypt in 1935, and are also available, along with much else of interest about the excavation, on the Griffith Institute's website (www.griffith.ox.ac.uk). Walter Segal (1907-1985) relocated to London after making them, and he became there the foremost exponent of self-build housing, giving his name to an easily learnt method of building houses in wood. A career that could move between these diverse concerns is of unusual interest. See John McKean, Learning from Segal/von Segal lernen, Basel and Boston: Birkhauser, 1989. 6. Aloïs Riegl, Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts [1897-88], tr. Jacqueline E. Jung, New York: Zone, 2004, p.56
Netherworld 2013 stainless steel tubing and LED lights 435 x 380 x 265 cm detail 4
3 Netherworld 2013 stainless steel tubing and LED lights 435 x 380 x 265 cm detail 4
Conceived of sky, born of dusk. Sky conceived you and Orion, Dusk gave birth to you and Orion. Who lives lives by the gods' command, You shall live! You shall rise with Orion in the eastern sky, You shall set with Orion in the western sky, The Pyramid text of Pepi I Meryre (reign 2332 – 2283 BC) Utterance 442: Sarcophagus Chamber, West Wall
My first encounter with death was when my family dog died. I was five years old. I could see his pink skin below the white fur soaked with my tears. I could feel his warmth as I pressed my face into his body. The day after he died we dug a hole in the garden and buried him. Before burying him I wanted to give him one last hug. He was so heavy that my uncle had to help me lift him up. His body was already stiff and I could see his blackish pink tongue between his fangs. His body seemed somehow deflated. The earth we piled over him was teeming with insects. As his body disappeared into the ground, I began to wonder what would happen to him. His absence and motionlessness seemed to expand and fill the whole house, overwhelming me with a terrible sadness. When that night I asked my grandmother and uncle what would happen to him, they took me out into the garden and told me that he would turn to earth and then become a star. They pointed upwards to the night sky. Back then there was relatively little pollution in Tokyo and not that many lights, so the sky was bright with stars. I vividly remember how I stared up wondering which of the stars my dog had turned into. Ever since then I have always had at the back of my mind the idea that death and stars are somehow related. Over the years death has impinged on my life in many different ways. My grandmother, who showed me the stars that night, is no longer alive. My childhood memories were stirred two years ago when I saw the Egyptian ‘Book of the Dead’ exhibition at the British Museum. This was when I started thinking about the Netherworld project. The first civilisations to develop script were China and Egypt. The invention of writing both revolutionised the course of history and also enslaved humanity to the desire to leave its mark for posterity. In Egypt, the resulting obsession with immortality led to the cult of the mummy.
Tutankhamun’s Tomb 2013 ink on computer printout 21 x 29.7 cm
The hieroglyphics that are also such a key characteristic of Egyptian culture were used to decorate the walls of tombs in the place of rich burial furnishings. The hieroglyphs themselves and the words and sentences composed from them operated as a form of magic. The deceased were believed to be protected from decay by the permanence of the hieroglyphic script and thus to be safe for ever. My Netherworld is not, however, centred on script but on the structure of the tomb, which I have modelled after that of Tutankhamun. The reason for choosing Tutankhamun’s tomb is because it has survived more intact than any other. The tomb surrounded the deceased with many layers: four shrines, one sarcophagus, three coffins and the famous gold mask on the mummy of the dead Pharaoh. These layers were like a cocoon protecting the mummified body. They acted as physical barriers to prevent intrusion by bandits at the same time as echoing in their multi-layered configuration the repetitiveness of the spells written in hieroglyphics on the walls. In Ancient Egypt, dusk marks the beginning of the journey to the afterlife, when the Ka and Ba that leave a person’s body at the moment of death reunite, allowing the deceased to join the stars in the sky. The Ka is the vital essence which comes into existence when a person is born. Because it was believed that the Ka needed sustenance in the afterlife, the Egyptians made offerings of food and water to the deceased. Ba was that which made a person individual and corresponds to our notion of personality. Mummification aimed to keep the body biologically unchanged in order that it could be reunified with the soul in the next life. Extreme dryness and coldness also helped prevent decomposition of the body. The process of programmed cell death, apoptosis, is a key feature of biological life. It underlies the formation of fingers and toes, for example, and functions in such a way that the dying cells break down into fragments that the body can remove without damage occurring to surrounding cells. In an adult between 50 and 70 billion cells die each day. In a growing child the number is between 20 and 30 billion. Apoptosis is not purely benign in its action, however, and has been implicated in a wide variety of diseases. Too much apoptosis can lead to the body atrophying. We now know scientifically what the Ancient Egyptians believed to be true, namely that life implies death and death implies life, that man is born programmed to die. This cycle of birth and death is also seen in the realm of the stars to which the Egyptians believed the Pharaohs migrated after death. When the universe began there was only hydrogen. As the universe moved into its first stage, this hydrogen fuelled the process by which nitrogen, carbon, silicon and iron came into being. These elements, which are the building blocks of human life, were all created within stars, which then exploded and dispersed them in the second and third stages of the universe. The cyclicality of the life of stars and that of humankind are linked in a way understood by the Egyptians with extraordinary prescience. Birth is the beginning of death, and death is the beginning of life. Yuko Shiraishi, August 2013
Signal, Installation at Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Anubis and Apoptosis (1) 2013 collage on paper 45.5 x 54.5 cm
Study - Nether World - 2 2013 collage on paper 45 x 38.8 cm
Orion and Apoptosis 2013 collage on paper 41.5 x 29.5 cm
World - 1-4 2013 pencil, crayon and collage on paper 20 x 15.4 cm each
Study - Nether World - 1 2013 collage on handmade paper 62 x 46 cm
Birth and Death Star 2013 collage on paper 45 x 32 cm
Signal, Installation at Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Signal, Installation at Annely Juda Fine Art, London
Signal between 1 and 2 2012 oil on canvas 183 x 168 cm
Overtone 2013 oil on canvas 137 x 121.4 cm
Here 2006-2013 oil on canvas 213 x 193 cm
Out There 2013 oil on canvas 152.4 x 137 cm
Begin Again 2013 oil on canvas 167.6 x 152.4 cm
Signal (3) 2013 oil on canvas 183 x 167 cm
Signal 2 2013 oil on canvas 212 x 182.5 cm
Recent Projects
Confession Show, Peep Box x Peep Show, Confession Box
This project Confession Show, Peep Box x Peep Show, Confession Box is exploring the architectural structure not only made to fit the human physical scale, but also to create the psychological space filled with secrecy, guilt, sin and inhibition. Shiraishi is fascinated by the way the act of confessing in the small confines of the box is curiously similar to the peeping voyeurism of a sex show. In her work, the confession panel works as a peeping window into the world within. She wants to explore human fascination with the act of peeping and looking into the hidden and secret world in darkness.
Installation at The Russian Club Gallery, London 25 November 2010 - 15 January 2011
Missing Link Place to Be
The idea for this project came from reading Aldous Huxley’s Heaven and Hell and The Human Situation. That people can be transported by the sight of shimmering objects and go to extraordinary lengths to extract diamonds and precious metals from the earth have nothing to do with beauty or usefulness. It is more to do with how their reflective properties draw us into ‘a world of visions’, ‘the most remote of all our inner worlds’, which lies deeper than the ‘world of memory, fantasy and imagination’ or even that of the Jungian collective unconscious. By creating a courtyard garden full of shimmering elements, Shiraishi wants people to experience and reflect on what Huxley has so compellingly drawn our attention to. She wants it to act as a Missing Link that takes us beyond the mundane and makes us able to experience ‘consciously something of that which, unconsciously, is always with us.’
Installation at Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel 15 June - 17 July 2010
Specimen
Specimen is an editioned work that takes the form of square vinyl records with five original soundtracks encoded with insect sounds. The soundtrack Specimen is composed by Yuko Shiraishi. The Passage of the Butterfly is composed by Yuko Shiraishi and Tadao Kawamura, who have been collaborating musically as band 36 since 2010, after the poem of the same title by Edgar Allan Poe. White White Whale, which references Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, is also jointly composed by Shiraishi and Kawamura. The third track, in two parts, comprises Neuro-Specimen, composed by the musician John Matthias, and Ten Mile Bank by Matthias and Andrew Prior.
Specimen square record April 2011
Specimen Installation at Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo 2011
Specimen performance by Yuko Shiraishi and Tadao Kawamura and musicians
Women in Landscape – Women in many worlds
This work was a site specific installation and formed part of the exhibition Parallel Remix, which was also curated by Yuko Shiraishi at the Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York. For the exhibition Shiraishi selected artists who she knew to have an understanding of art history and that had the capacity and interest to look back on and draw from the past. The exhibition included works by contemporary artists as well as artists such as Malevich, Soutine and Chashnik.
Women in Landscape - Women in Many Worlds 2010 two-part vinyl installation and ink, acrylic and printed drawing site-specific installation
Installation at Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York 14 October - 20 November 2010
Four 2013 oil on canvas 55 x 45cm
BIOGRAPHY 1956 Born in Tokyo 1974-76 Lived in Vancouver, Canada 1978-81 Chelsea School of Art, BA 1981-82 Chelsea School of Art, MA Lives and works in London
2002-03
2003
SELECTED ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS 1988 1989 1990
1991 1992 1993 1994 1996
1997
1998 1999 2000 2001
2002
Edward Totah Gallery, London Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo Edward Totah Gallery, London Artsite, Bath Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Cairn Gallery, Nailsworth Edward Totah Gallery, London Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo Gallery Kasahara, Osaka Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Gallery Kasahara, Osaka Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf Focus, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide Juxtapositions, Annely Juda Fine Art, London Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Ernst Múzeum, Budapest (with Soós Tamás) Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York As Dark as Light, Tate Gallery St Ives, Cornwall Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo Assemble - Disperse, Annely Juda Fine Art, London Gallery Kasahara, Osaka Infinite Line, Die unendliche Linie, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany
2005
2006
2007 2007-08
2008 2009
2010
2011 2012 2013
Episode, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry; travelled to Leeds City Art Gallery There and Back, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork Tuesday is Cerise, Waygood Gallery, Newcastle Temperature: Installation, Project and Painting, Annely Juda Fine Art, London A Way of Seeing, Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York (with Josef Albers) Above and Below, Galerie König, Hanau (with Werner Haypeter) Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm 8 x 2, Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung, Bonn and Galerie Friedrich Müller, Frankfurt (with Katsuhito Nishikawa) Contact, Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz Even If Love, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen and WilhelmHack-Museum (with Birgitta Weimer) Projects with Architecture 20012008, PEER, London Space Space: Installation, Project and Painting, Annely Juda Fine Art, London Place to be, Galerie Gisele Linder, Basel The Russian Club Gallery, London (with Phil Coy) Specimen, Shigeru Yokota Gallery, TPH, Tokyo Space Space, Kukje Gallery, Seoul, Korea Signal, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
ONE PERSON PROJECTS 2001
2001-04 2005
2006 2008
2010 2011
FIH: Field Institute Hombroich (with Tadashi Kawamata, Katsuhito Nishikawa) Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Neuss, Germany BBC White City Project (with Allies & Morrison), London Swimmingpool (with Mie Miyamoto, Jonathan Moore Coldcut) Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Neuss, Germany Moorfields Eye Hospital Children’s Centre, London Jiundou Hospital, Tokyo, Japan (with architect: Nissouken) Canal Wall – a semi-permanent wall painting commissioned by PEER in partnership with Shoreditch Trust at Regent’s Canal Kyoto Art Walk (Curated by Yuko Shiraishi) Njojo Castle, Kiyomizudera Temple, Tofukuji Temple, Kyoto Parallel Remix, curated by Yuko Shiraishi, Leonard Hutton Gallery, New York Specimen, square vinyl record, TPH, Tokyo
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1980 1988
1990
New Contemporaries, ICA, London The Presence of Painting: Aspects of British Abstraction 1957-88, Arts Council Touring Exhibition: Mappin Gallery, Sheffield; Hatton Art Gallery, Newcastle; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham Künstlerinnen des 20. Jahrhunderts, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1991 1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
Double Take, American-Japan Art Association, New York Geteilte Bilder - Das Diptychon in der neuen Kunst, Folkwang Museum, Essen A Sense of Purpose, Mappin Gallery, Sheffield Moving into view - Recent British Painting, Arts Council Touring Exhibition, Royal Festival Hall, London Zwei Enerigien, Haus für Konstruktive und Konkrete Kunst, Zurich Contemporary Art, Courtauld Institute, London Unveiled, Cornerhouse Gallery, Manchester Jerwood Painting Prize 1994, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; Royal Academy of Arts, London New Painting, Arts Council Touring Exhibition Pretext Heteronyms, Clink Street, curated by Rear Window New Painting from the Arts Council Collection, Bath Museum, Bath Pretext Heteronyms, San Michele, Rome Haus Bill, Zumikon Clear and Saturated, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam Immerzeit, Forum Konkrete Kunst Galerie am Fischmarkt, Erfurt, Germany Geometrie als Gestalt, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin Vendégjáték, Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest
2000
2001
2002 2003 2004
2005
2006
2007
2009
2009/2010
Blue: Borrowed and New, The New Art Gallery, Walsall Grau ist nicht Grau, Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel NU Konstuktiv Tendens-efter 20ar, Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm Colour - A Life of its own, Mücsarnok, Budapest Index on Colour, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds Art Scope Japan, Daimler Chrysler Contemporary, Berlin Apriori, Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz Swimmingpool (with Mie Miyamoto, Jonathan Moore Coldcut) FIH, Stiftung Insel Hombroich Museum, Neuss Föhn, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London Kyoto Art Walk, Njojo Castle, Kyoto, Japan Intimate Space, MOT, London The Best of Basle 2006, Galerie Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf Busan Biennale, Korea Schwebend – Hovering, Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz Painting Painting, Modern Gallery – Vass László Collection, Veszprém, Hungary Annely Juda - A Celebration, Annely Juda Fine Art, London Alles, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen Samlingsutställning, Galerie Konstruktiv Tendens, Stockholm The Club Room, The Russian Club Gallery, London Konkrete Idole - Nonfigurative Kunst und afrikanische Skulpturen, Museum Liner, Appenzell, Switzerland
2010
2011
2012 2013
When Ideas Become Form, Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz Sameness & Difference, The Russian Club Gallery, London Line and Colour in Drawing, Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium Abstraction, The Room – Four Walls and a Floor, London Artists for Kettles Yard, Kettles Yard, Cambridge 10 x 10 Drawing the City London, Somerset House, London Matthew Tyson & Imprints, mpk Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern Russian Club presents ‘Wonderland’, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Arts Council of Great Britain British Council, London British Government Art Collection, London British Museum, London Contemporary Art Society, London Daimler Benz, Stuttgart, Germany Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, Austria Graves City Art Gallery, Sheffield Ludwig Muzeum, Budapest, Hungary Max Bill - George Vantongerloo Foundation, Zumikon, Switzerland McCrory Corporation, New York, USA The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan Ohara Museum, Kurashiki, Japan Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan Weishaupt Forum, Ulm, Germany Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany Kunsthalle Würth, Germany
Special thanks to: Andrew Everett and Gary Woodley for constructing Netheworld. Yu Daigaku for the model and computer drawings. Kyoko Ando for translating from Japanese to English.
ISBN 1-904621-52-X
Essay © Ian Hunt Catalogue © Annely Juda Fine Art/Yuko Shiraishi 2013 Works © Yuko Shiraishi Printed by Deckers Snoeck, Belgium