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Muneteru Ujino "Lost Frontier"
Anomaly
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Artists
Muneteru Ujino
Muneuteru Ujino (b.1964) composes found objects such as household appliances, hair dryers, electric guitars, and automobiles, and examines the irony of a mass consumer society followed by a culture of mass disposal, as well as the imported culture of rock and roll and industrial music that came to Japan through the U.S. His work is based on the concept of "Lost Frontier. The artist has continued to expand his range of expression with works and performances that examine the imported culture of rock and roll and industrial music that came to Japan through the United States.
Ujino's works, which advocate "research on material civilization" with DIY techniques, are composed of mass-produced "materials," symbols of 20th-century-style development, which sometimes connect to form a gigantic figure, celebrating the overwhelming presence that only "things" have. Ujino's experience exhibiting at "gambiologos 2.0" in Brazil led him to the principle that "all industrial products lead to war, and all DIY activities lead to revolution," and he continues to create artwork using DIY techniques.
Roppongi Crossing 2010 Exhibition: Is Art Possible? (Mori Art Museum, 2010), Yokohama Triennale 2017 "Islands, Constellations, and Galapagos" (Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1, 2017), and "Collection Exhibition: Asian Landscapes" (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2018), each of which showed a strong presence with large-scale installations. "The Rotators" series of sound sculptures composed of home appliances, the "Plywood City" series that uses wooden boxes used for art transportation as support to resemble a city, and the "Japan" series that graphically expresses the current situation in Japan, where the concept of foreign words has been replaced by katakana and accepted. In each of these series, Ujino's work has its origins in a critical perspective on imported culture and technology that has been artificially incorporated into Americanized postwar Japan.
In recent years, Ujino has also made it a proposition to deal with illusions and has made extensive use of flat-projected images. The video work "Lives in Japan" (2018) is a sound installation in which the units that made up the installation "Plywood Shinchi" were each considered independent characters, and their operation was recorded as a performance and synchronized on multiple displays. The sound installation was synchronized with multiple displays. "Radiowave Quarter" (2018) was a work in which Ujino filmed live footage of receivers capturing shortwave radio broadcasts from various countries and synchronized multiple images, all of which were new experiments for him.
In particular, all of the home appliances "appearing" in "Lives in Japan" were filmed in Japanese living spaces such as Japanese-style rooms, and their dynamic appearance and thunderous beats seem to reveal a straightforward yearning for Western culture in postwar Japan. Each part has been converted into video data and has lost its existence as an object (material) until now (when the electricity is cut off, everything goes dark and disappears).
Ujino's works offer a critical perspective on the conflicting nature of modern civilization, in which monstrous materials are still being produced unceasingly, while at the same time "things" are aiming to become "nothing" through the Internet and informatization. It is only natural that Ujino's creative work has turned toward the visual in parallel with his handling of materials.
Ujino's experience of watching the sun shine through his kitchen window and the translucent plastic shadows fall on his kitchen through the countless Tupperware he found there all day long gave him a sense of "the conflict between the beauty of shadows and the plastic. The scene depicted in "Plywood City Stories 2," one of Ujino's video trilogy, in which a classic Japanese house made of paper, earth, and wood is filled with modern appliances and plastic products, casting their shadows, is at the origin of his work.
As an adult, Ujino has come to realize that he must produce his own answers (works) to industrial products with a DIY spirit in post-modern Japan, and in today's information society, he continues to create works ambitiously, saying, "I feel like I am fighting against AI and robots with the wreckage of modernity, and it burns.
The title of this exhibition is "Lost Frontier" (Lost Frontier), which refers to an unexplored region/boundary that once existed in the age of imperialism. It refers to Manchuria, the homeland of Ujino's mother, who appears in the video work, and the border town of Andong (present-day Dandong), where she was born and raised.
Ujino's work for this exhibition consists of three elements: a new video work, a sound sculpture/video work, and a series of paintings of sushi rolls that are not of Japanese origin.
This exhibition is composed of fragments and records of very personal experiences of prewar colonialism in the 20th century and the mass-produced images of mass products that have continued to be produced in large quantities since the postwar era. As globalism spreads these products throughout the world, Ujino's personal experiences are connected to a larger diplomatic history, from which he attempts to gain a critical perspective on the present day.
Ujino's works, which advocate "research on material civilization" with DIY techniques, are composed of mass-produced "materials," symbols of 20th-century-style development, which sometimes connect to form a gigantic figure, celebrating the overwhelming presence that only "things" have. Ujino's experience exhibiting at "gambiologos 2.0" in Brazil led him to the principle that "all industrial products lead to war, and all DIY activities lead to revolution," and he continues to create artwork using DIY techniques.
Roppongi Crossing 2010 Exhibition: Is Art Possible? (Mori Art Museum, 2010), Yokohama Triennale 2017 "Islands, Constellations, and Galapagos" (Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1, 2017), and "Collection Exhibition: Asian Landscapes" (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2018), each of which showed a strong presence with large-scale installations. "The Rotators" series of sound sculptures composed of home appliances, the "Plywood City" series that uses wooden boxes used for art transportation as support to resemble a city, and the "Japan" series that graphically expresses the current situation in Japan, where the concept of foreign words has been replaced by katakana and accepted. In each of these series, Ujino's work has its origins in a critical perspective on imported culture and technology that has been artificially incorporated into Americanized postwar Japan.
In recent years, Ujino has also made it a proposition to deal with illusions and has made extensive use of flat-projected images. The video work "Lives in Japan" (2018) is a sound installation in which the units that made up the installation "Plywood Shinchi" were each considered independent characters, and their operation was recorded as a performance and synchronized on multiple displays. The sound installation was synchronized with multiple displays. "Radiowave Quarter" (2018) was a work in which Ujino filmed live footage of receivers capturing shortwave radio broadcasts from various countries and synchronized multiple images, all of which were new experiments for him.
In particular, all of the home appliances "appearing" in "Lives in Japan" were filmed in Japanese living spaces such as Japanese-style rooms, and their dynamic appearance and thunderous beats seem to reveal a straightforward yearning for Western culture in postwar Japan. Each part has been converted into video data and has lost its existence as an object (material) until now (when the electricity is cut off, everything goes dark and disappears).
Ujino's works offer a critical perspective on the conflicting nature of modern civilization, in which monstrous materials are still being produced unceasingly, while at the same time "things" are aiming to become "nothing" through the Internet and informatization. It is only natural that Ujino's creative work has turned toward the visual in parallel with his handling of materials.
Ujino's experience of watching the sun shine through his kitchen window and the translucent plastic shadows fall on his kitchen through the countless Tupperware he found there all day long gave him a sense of "the conflict between the beauty of shadows and the plastic. The scene depicted in "Plywood City Stories 2," one of Ujino's video trilogy, in which a classic Japanese house made of paper, earth, and wood is filled with modern appliances and plastic products, casting their shadows, is at the origin of his work.
As an adult, Ujino has come to realize that he must produce his own answers (works) to industrial products with a DIY spirit in post-modern Japan, and in today's information society, he continues to create works ambitiously, saying, "I feel like I am fighting against AI and robots with the wreckage of modernity, and it burns.
The title of this exhibition is "Lost Frontier" (Lost Frontier), which refers to an unexplored region/boundary that once existed in the age of imperialism. It refers to Manchuria, the homeland of Ujino's mother, who appears in the video work, and the border town of Andong (present-day Dandong), where she was born and raised.
Ujino's work for this exhibition consists of three elements: a new video work, a sound sculpture/video work, and a series of paintings of sushi rolls that are not of Japanese origin.
This exhibition is composed of fragments and records of very personal experiences of prewar colonialism in the 20th century and the mass-produced images of mass products that have continued to be produced in large quantities since the postwar era. As globalism spreads these products throughout the world, Ujino's personal experiences are connected to a larger diplomatic history, from which he attempts to gain a critical perspective on the present day.
Schedule | Jul 7 (Fri) 2023-Aug 5 (Sat) 2023 Opening Hours Information
Opening Reception Jul 7 (Fri) 2023 17:00 - 21:00 | ||||
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | http://anomalytokyo.com/exhibition/ujino | ||||
| Venue | Anomaly http://anomalytokyo.com/en/top/ | ||||
| Location | 4F Terrada Art Complex, 1-33-10 Higashi Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002 | ||||
| Access | 9 minute walk from exit B at Tennozu Isle Station on the Rinkai line, 10 minute walk from the South exit of Tennozu Isle Station on the Tokyo Monorail line, 9 minute walk from the North exit of Shimbamba Station on the Keikyu line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6433-2988 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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