Darren Almond
Second Thoughts
November 16, 2013–February 2, 2014
Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito
1-6-8 Gokencho, Mito-shi
Ibaraki, 310-0063, Japan
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 9:30–18h
T +81 (0)29 227 8120
cacpr [at] car.ocn.ne.jp
From November 16, 2013 to February 2, 2014, the Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito has invited London based artist Darren Almond to do a large-scale solo exhibition.
The exhibition gathers diverse works (video installations, paintings, photographs and three-dimensional objects) made since 1999 and invites visitors to take part in a meditation on time and personal and historical memory.
Almond is interested in the mutual relationship between the scientific concept of time and its psychological perception. In his works he applies different media in an attempt to represent various scales of time and connect the viewer’s perception of real time to the abyss of time.
Travel and discovery are also important for his artistic practice. Visiting ancient relics, post-industrialized cities and wild nature sites across the globe, Almond has recalled the history of human act and its dignity in civilization.
Japan plays an important role for Almond’s creative work. Since the 1990s he has traveled around Japan and created works inspired by its nature and culture. The CAC is exhibiting three pieces which Almond created based on his experiences in Japan. Sometimes Still (2010) is a six-screen video installation showing Almond’s recordings of the so called Sennichi Kaihyôgô. This Buddhist practice is a severe training taking place over a period of seven years around Mt. Hiei of Kyoto in order to reach enlightenment. The photographic series “Civil Dawn@Mt. Hiei” was shot at Mount Hiei, capturing the first sunlight of the day touching the earth. Another photo series, “Day for Night,” depicts the iconic flower of Japan, the cherry blossom. Along with a selection of recent works, the exhibition also presents his important large-scale video installation All Things Pass (2012) and the sculptural wall installation Tide (2008).
Almond tackles the relationship between the ontology of human and industrialization in his past works. The new work Less Than Zero refers to the climate of the Arctic landscape mined by Stalin’s Gulag prisoners and it addresses the landscape of the industrial age in a post-industrial nuclear age.
The exhibition Second Thoughts will provide the space for encountering different dimensions of time and space and human agency in natural landscape.
Curated by Mizuki Takahashi, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue in Japanese and English, to be published in January 2014 by AKA AKA Publishing Inc.
Darren Almond
Darren Almond was born in 1971 in Wigan, UK, and currently lives and works in London. Almond has been invited to do solo exhibitions by major institutions including The Renaissance Society, Chicago (1999), De Appel (2001), Tate Britain (2001), Kunsthalle Zürich (2001) and K21, Düsseldorf (2005). In 2005 he was nominated for the Turner Prize and also participated in important group exhibitions such as Sensation (1997–1999), Berlin Biennale (2001), Venice Biennale (2003) and Tate Triennale (2009).
Single Channel Video program by 5 Japanese Contemporary Artists
December 14, 2013–February 2, 2014 13–18h
*Please check our website for detailed information.
For Darren Almond’s show Second Thoughts five leading Japanese contemporary video artists’ video works addressing the issue of time in video art will be screened in the workshop gallery at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito. On January 18, a talk session with participating artists is scheduled.
Participating artists: Takashi Ishida, Mami Kosemura, Lieko Shiga, Takao Minami and Akira Miyanaga
Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito
Since its opening in 1990, the Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito has been recognized as one of Japan’s leading contemporary art institutions. Housed in a building designed by internationally acclaimed architect Arata Isozaki, the Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito is committed to introducing experimental works by international artists as well as supporting new challenges by emerging Japanese artists. Establishing bridges between art and society, local and international, the Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito aspires to produce creative programs in collaboration with artists, musicians and performers from across the world.
