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Miwa Yanagi: From the Deutsche Bank Collection

May 4, 2007- August 25, 2007

Miwa Yanagi

Chelsea Art Museum

556 W 22nd St

This Japanese artist catapulted to fame with a series of photographs of Elevator Girls which explored the ideas about appropriate roles for women in Japanese society. Yanagi's work is about the psychology of people, and this is reflected in subsequent series such as My Grandmothers which brings to the fore ideas that young women have about aging, and Fairy Tales, a series of hauntingly dark images of reworked Fairy Tales, which depict children assuming the guise of both young and old characters in strange indoor settings which are loaded with symbolism.

On view in a one-person museum show for the first time in the US, Miwa Yanagi: Deutsche Bank Collection will open at the Chelsea Art Museum, Home of The Miotte Foundation in New York on May 4 and run through August 11, 2007. Over 30 photographs representing three unique bodies of work, and a new video will be featured by this outstanding contemporary Japanese artist. After its presentation at Chelsea Art Museum, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston for display in February 2008.

Miwa Yanagi, who lives in Kyoto, Japan, was selected as Deutsche Bank’s 2004 Artist of the Business Year and mounted a show that year at Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin featuring her first two series, “Elevator Girls” and “My Grandmothers.” The newest works from the “Fairy Tales” series will be added and exhibited together in New York for the first time.

The stunning photographs of Miwa Yanagi explore themes depicting the role of women in the context of Japanese society, yet reflect archetypal concerns of women in general. Mixing both the imaginary and the real, Yanagi conjures compelling visions using theatrical set-ups and mesmerizing color. “Elevator Girls, started in 1993, first gained international attention for the artist, and “My Grandmothers”, begun in 1999, is based directly on conversations with the women who apply to be her models. The most recent “Fairy Tales” series, mainly shot in black and white, further examine female roles as they are mythologized in fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm.

Elevator Girls For the Elevator Girls series, identically clothed female models pose within surrealistic architecture where anonymity and interchangeability echo their own psychic predicament. Featured in groups and in contrast to the cool, synthetic environments that surround them, the photographs present women themselves as display items as they gaze at architectural models and objects of consumer desire. According to Yanagi, Elevator Girls is about "myself and other Japanese women" who feel the kind of standardization that exists in modern Japanese society and elsewhere.

My Grandmothers In the ongoing My Grandmothers series, Miwa Yanagi creates a response to the youth of “Elevator Girls” by projecting the dreams of young women into the future 50 years forward. After talking with her collaborating models, the artist creates images depicting their personal visions of life in old age, accompanied by poetically evocative texts based on the conversations. The young models have been professionally altered by make-up and digital manipulation and, like all of Yanagi’s work; the images invite viewer speculation on their interpretation.

Fairy Tales Yanagi’s latest series explore famous children’s stories, such as Rapunzel and Snow White, which deal with relationships between young girls and older women. These often disturbing narratives that have been passed down through European history, are points of departure for the artist’s exploration of the underlying significance of the tales, ones which are often violent and cruel. Etched into our collective memories, but presented through the artist’s lens, the images examine and twist the mythologies further using masks, wigs, mixed race models and female children dressed as older women.

Miwa Yanagi was born in Kobe, Japan in 1967 and completed her post graduate courses at Kyoto City University of Arts. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in museums worldwide, including Deutsche Guggenheim, the Ludwig Museum, Budapest and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan.

Dorothea Keeser, president and co founder of the Chelsea Art Museum commented, "We are very pleased to be hosting the first American exhibition of Miwa Yanagi, whose powerful explorations of the mythology and iconography surrounding the portrayal of women are a potent addition to our programming. In addition, we are delighted to enter into this collaboration with Deutsche Bank."

“Supporting living contemporary artists through purchases, commissions and exhibition sponsorships has been a commitment by Deutsche Bank for over 25 years,” said Friedhelm Huette, Director and Curator, Deutsche Bank Art, Frankfurt. “We are thrilled to be able to bring to New York audiences for the first time an overview of work to date by this exceptional artist, including new works never before seen.”

Catalogue: Miwa Yanagi – Deutsche Bank Collection with texts by Manon Slome, Chief Curator of the Chelsea Art Museum, Ariane Grigoteit, Friedhelm Hütte, Anne Tucker, Peter Herbstreuth, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Chizuko Ueno; In English, 80 pages, $30.00

Organized by: Deutsche Bank Art in collaboration with Chelsea Art Museum

Books and DVDs related to artists in this show

Location   Gallery Chelsea Art Museum Address 556 W 22nd St New York (Chelsea) NY, 10011 United States Phone 212-255-0719 Hours Tue-Sat 12-6, Thur 12-8 Nearby: All 2 galleries at 556 W 22nd St

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