highlights of 2008

artist
Tabaimo is an artist who received a lot of attention last year. Her works were on display in Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, in Yokohama Museum of Art but aslo as a part of Chanel Mobile Gallery. Till mid Feb Koyanagi Gallery hosted an exhibition titled Tabaimo House. Tabaimo produces video installations using animation. But what is even more distinctive about her works is the way she sets them up. In Hara Museum the viewers were looking at her mesmerizing projections through letter box -like holes, in Yokohama they had to sit on the floor under a spherical screen, in Mobile Gallery they were looking down into the well- like space. The artist says that she is setting up space to encourage viewers to be proactive in how they look at work. Her works become a participatory experience.

Tabaimo, Ginyo-ru, 2005, video installation

exhibition

Since the term curator has been coined the world has learnt that exhibition is not only about hanging the artworks on the gallery wall. Tadashi Kawamata exhibition Walkway at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (MoT) curated by Sumimoto Fumihiko was one of the rare examples of non- conventional museum display where visitors walked through wooden corridors leading to temporary workshops and documentary photographs with artist's projects. An excellent example that archives can be displayed in an interesting and dynamic environment rather than closing them in the glass cases and most ambitious manipulation of gallery space at the same time!

Tadashi Kawamata

Walkway, 2008

venue

TSW (Tokyo Wander Site) on the Tokyo art space map is the only one, which realize modern concept of conemporary art center which is not only a gallery but also a place of importatnt art talks and art-in-residency program. Coming here has never been a disappointment which I have already express on several other occasions.

event

Yokohama Triennale, Japan's most important international exhibition with the representation of 72 artists from 25 countries. Although criticized for the theme, architecture, catalogue and few other things it was the most commented event and the one which got high scores amongst Asia-Pacific shows in 2008 (ARTiT). For me it was a chance to see some top notch artworks outside Europe so I felt like at home.