Special Exhibition YANAGI×HARAGUCHI

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At Momoshima, an island without any bridges connecting it to the outside world, large-scale installations by contemporary artists Yukinori Yanagi and Noriyuki Haraguchi come together in the exhibition “YANAGI×HARAGUCHI.”
“Wandering Mickey,” a humorous and critical commentary of today’s oil dependent culture
that Yanagi produced in America during his early years, is made of 600 oil drums and recreated for this exhibition. Also featured is his magnum opus, the “Ant Farm” series, which is in the collections of a number of museums including the Tate Modern, and gives a straightforward visual representation of today’s chaotic world.
In addition, the exhibition features Haraguchi’s new work “Oil Pool” that was created specifically for ART BASE MOMOSHIMA and has gained near mythical status. Shown in an abandoned school on a cut-off island, it mysteriously reflects the reality of the world we live in.

Venue: ART BASE MOMOSHIMA / N Gallery
Artists: Yukinori Yanagi, Noriyuki Haraguchi
Supported by Mr. N, Miyake Fine Art, YASUGI Co., Ltd., SANYO SENKO CO., LTD.,

YANAGI Yukinori

Yukinori Yanagi was born in Fukuoka in 1959. He majored in sculpture at the Yale University, New Haven, CT.
In 1993, Yanagi participated in the 45th Venice Biennial and became the first Japanese to be selected for the Aperto exhibition dedicated to exploring emerging artists. Later, he opened a studio in New York and launched solo exhibitions at venues such as the Anthony d'Offay Gallery (London) and Peter Blum (New York), and took part in numerous international festivals such as the 1996 Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil) and the 1997 la Biennale de Lyon (France). In 2000, he became the first non-American New York based artist to be selected for the Whitney Biennial. In 1992, Yanagi was invited to take part in the opening exhibition for the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum (now the Benesse House Museum) which sparked his obsession with the beauty of the small islands dispersed throughout the Seto Inland Sea. This eventually lead him to discover Inujima, an island with an abandoned copper refinery, and he began planning the “Inujima Art Project.”
In 2008, he completed the “Seirensho,” an art museum that utilizes natural energy and fuses the legacy of modern industrialization with the Showa period message of author Yukio Mishima.
Yanagi’s artworks are in numerous museum collections such as the MOMA and Tate Modern. The provocative nature of his work, full of wit and social commentary, continues to spark controversy such as his “Ant Farm” series that was attacked by animal rights organizations. This aspect of his work suggests that his creations transcend the limits of art.
From 2007, he has been directing the “Hiroshima Art Project” which uses vacant facilities for promoting art and artistic practice.

HARAGUCHI Noriyuki

Noriyuki Haraguchi was born in Yokosuka, Kanagawa in 1946. He graduated from Nihon University College of Art, Department of Fine Arts.
Haraguchi began his career as an artist in the late 1960s, and in 1977 made an impact in the Western art world by exhibiting a giant steel pool filled with oil waste at “Documenta 6,” a quadrennial international art festival in Kassel where he was the first Japanese to be selected. This was followed by his participation in the 10th Biennale de Paris, and his first solo exhibition overseas was in 1978 at the Galerie Alfred Schmela in Dusseldorf. He gained an international reputation through large scale exhibitions such as “NORIYUKI HARAGUCHI,” his solo exhibition at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in 2001. and “Das Schwarze Quadrat, Hommage en Malewitsch,” an hommage to Malevich in 2007. His recent activities include a first ever large-scale retrospective, “Noriyuki Haraguchi: Society and Matter,” which included the presentation of his new work at the BankART1929’s Studio NYK in Yokohama in 2009, evidence of his major influence and presence in the domestic art domain. This fall, he will be a part of MOMA’s “Tokyo 1995-1970: A New Avant-garde” exhibition. “Oil Pool,” his new work created at ART BASE MOMOSHIMA, is the one of the only two “Oil Pool” works that has been made for a sight-specific venue.

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