The drawings and video installations of Japanese artist Tabaimo probe unsettling themes of isolation, contagion, instability and uncertainty that lurk beneath the daily existence of contemporary Japan.
Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art presents Tabaimo’s first solo exhibition in Australia, ‘MEKURUMEKU’ with an exhibition featuring six video installations, including two new works created specifically for the exhibition. Additionally, there is a series of pencil and ink drawings, expanding the exhibition’s display into an additional gallery space.
Tabaimo draws aesthetic inspiration for her video from the Japanese woodblock tradition, particularly the line work and style of the Edo period prints of Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1848). Evidence of this can be seen in her subtle use of shading and colour gradations within her imagery; and their distinctive hand drawn quality. These drawings are digitalised to become animated sequences; so the resulting installations sit between old and new worlds.
With Tabaimo’s use of single and multi-screen video works, within purpose built architecture, one finds themself immersed in the constant changing environments that combine hand-drawn imagery and sound. Peering into hidden corners of the human psyche, these works ‘reveal a surreal world of beauty, anxiety and horror’ within the everyday. Tabaimo’s installations make us walk through, in and around her works physically, ensuring active roles within the stage-like scenarios she projects.
According to the gallery’s Senior Curator, Rachel Kent, Tabaimo attempts to ‘peel back layers’ exposing people’s mundane lives under the scrutiny of the public eye. This is supported by the exhibition’s title, ‘MEKURUMEKU’, indicating the ‘tearing apart’ of layers to reveal the truths within. Tabaimo delves deep into the interface of both public and private worlds world and further into the subtext of contemporary Japanese life.
Japanese Commuter Train (2001) is an eight-minute video loop on numerous screens that depict the interior of a commuter train. With cinematic qualities, the visitor becomes the voyeur, peering through framed windows, witnessing strange events and encountering some uncanny characters on the train. There is a dream-like quality to her work, but its reflections on society and the individual are sharp and sometimes even shocking.
A panoramic view of the apartment windows in the cityscape of Haunted House (2003) reveals a series of violent acts; a man hanging from the ceiling and a woman stabbing her husband. Tabaimo creates these scenes to make the visitor uncomfortable and therefore aware of of their own bodies in space, their movements through the installations and the exhibition space, to make us conscious of our surroundings and encourage us to physically engage with the work. In a 2009 interview, Tabaimo states that “only an uncomfortable environment will stimulate people like us to take this initiative… Installations require some kind of participation to complete the story being told by the images that the viewer is watching”.
Dolefullhouse (2007), a single-screen installation, depicts a dollhouse invaded by giant hands manipulating its contents, clawing at the walls and carpets. Scale and perspective is key in this work as a visitor can move back and forth with the illusion of either being inside the house or watching from afar. Tabaimo gives the visitor the choice of how involved with the work they wish to be.
Tabaimo delves deep into the interface of public and private and into the subtext of contemporary Japanese life, exposing the ‘hidden’ reality behind our public facades. Her works do not follow one narrative trajectory nor are they referencing a single issue. They merely show aspects of the ‘unseen’ and ‘unconscious’ in hope to effect the visitor’s imagination so that they may leave with their own experience and interpretation.
Museum of Contemporary Art
Until September 7, 2014
Sydney
Japanese Commuter Train (still), 2001, video installation, 8.03 minute loop
Courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Shanghai, and Gallery Koyanagim Tokyo
Dolefullhouse, 2007, video installation, 6.21 minute loop, installation view, Philagrafika, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2010
Courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Shanghai, Gallery Koyanagim Tokyo and Philadelphia Museum of Art
Photograph by Jason Wierzbicki
