project room: Koizumi Meiro

Meiro Koizumi, Defect in Vision, 2011, two-channel HD video installation, 12min.

Few years later in 2013 I see Meiro Koizumi works including the one described below in MoMA NY. Working in video and performance, until now Meiro  has built a compelling body of work that deals with power dynamics on scales from the familial to the national, and examines questions of political and psychological control. Implicating himself, his performers, and the viewer through choreographed emotional manipulations, Koizumi creates works that straddle the uncomfortable and indefinable line between cruelty and comedy. His first solo museum presentation in the United States, Projects 99 includes a selection of earlier projects, as well as Defect in Vision (2011), Meiro’s most ambitious and accomplished project to date. Probing the idea of blindness—both philosophical and physical—the piece is projected on two sides of a single screen, preventing the viewer from taking in both views at once. The action follows two performers who repeatedly enact a domestic scene set during World War II. While staged in the historical past, the scene’s portent of impending catastrophe has taken on a new relevance following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, in a work that is incisive, thought-provoking, and visually lush.

Upon my visit to Mori Art Museum I happened to come across Koizumi Meiro video installation My voice rich you (2009), which is a part of MAM project 009. It consists of two-part video, photography and a letter. In the first part of the video we see a man on the street talking to his mother on the phone. And although we don't hear the voice of the person on the other side of the line we can easily fill in the gaps in the dialogue. In the second part we can hear both sides and it turns out that actually the man talks to some customer service operator as if the person was his mother. And what seemed to be so familiar is now inconvenient and amusing in a way. The video is accompanied with the letter to his deceased mother written by the same man and the authentic photo which makes the work very personal and easy to identify with before we realize that in fact it is a play with social structures and our feelings. Here's the interview with the artist who is now working on his new piece titled Kamikaze Dog based on monologues spoken by kamikaze pilot in WW2 movies.