New details unveiled about Yokohama Triennale 2014


Yokohama Triennale 2014 artistic director Yasumasa Morimura (center), flanked from left to right by participating artists Akira Takayama, Kanayo Ueda of Kama Gei, Gregor Schneider and Masahiro Wada.

New details have emerged about the Yokohama Triennale 2014, presented at a press conference held at the Yokohama Museum of Art on Dec 13. The Triennale’s artistic director, Yasumasa Morimura, unveiled his plans for the exhibition structure and visual design, while also announcing an initial group of participating artists.

Entitled “ART Fahrenheit 451: Sailing into the sea of oblivion,” Morimura’s exhibition is conceived as a “voyage into the sea of oblivion,” which will prompt viewers to recall the things that have been lost from our lives, recall things that are perpetually forgotten by humanity and things that have been lost to the contemporary era. The exhibition will be divided into an “itinerary” that begins with “A Voyage of Silence and Whispers,” and continues to “A Voyage of Fahrenheit 451,” “A Voyage into the Useless” and “A Voyage to Meet the Enfants Terribles,” before concluding with “Drifting into a Sea of Oblivion.”

The exhibition’s visual design has been directed by graphic designer Tatsuya Ariyama. For the official poster, unveiled at the press conference, Ariyama had British artist Michael Landy write the exhibition’s Japanese title in brush and ink, and then had the Yokohama-based print artist Erika Kasai carve the script in linocut to derive the title lettering. The poster intentionally reveals traces of the strenuous labor involved in carving and printing the script.

In addition to Landy, six other participating artists and groups were announced: Kama Gei (Kamagasaki Free Art University, Melvin Moti, Gregor Schneider, Akira Takayama, Masahiro Wada, and Miwa Yanagi. To be installed at the entrance of the Yokohama Museum of Art, Landy will present his participatory project Art Bin, a 600-cubic-meter bin for artists to discard their failed and past works to build “a monument to creative failure.” Schneider will create a new work for the Triennale, while Takayama, who leads the theater and performance unit Port B, while create a new production researching Yokohama’s Asian roots, Yokohama Commune. Yanagi is producing a mobile stage truck for a theater production based on Kenji Nakagami’s novel Nichirin no tsubasa (Wings of the Sun).

The Triennale, which will be held primarily at the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall, opens Aug 1, 2014, and is scheduled to continue through Nov 3.

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