 |
Email PageIsland of Shattered Glass: In the Bondage of Quicksilver Daydreams
July 15, 2007- August 10, 2007
Reception: July 15, 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Futoshi Miyagi
Daniel Reich Gallery
537A W 23rd St Futoshi Miyagi (detail) |
While Miyagi¹s Strangers series photographically concocted a fantasy of gay domestic life in New York, Futoshi¹s Island of Shattered Glass parallels the legend of ³Nirai Kanai² through imagery resulting from an imagined, accidental trans-Pacific return to Okinawa. As is evident from the themes developed in Miyagi¹s Strangers series, this voyage opens up broader questions. Miyagi¹s work ponders the fleeting nature of memory itself -- both personal and cultural -- attempting to regain memories before they are forgotten through their resurrection as art objects: a practice which can also be seen as a form of reconciliation and alteration. The representation of memory yields an imaginary fictional past much like the metaphor of ³Nirai Kanai.² While Robert Smithson used broken glass for Atlantis, Miyagi¹s Atlantis consists of thin strips of shredded ³chigiries² portraying moments in the artist¹s childhood diffused by layers of memory and fantasy. Miyagi violently shreds his ³chigiries² after completion, so that the island of ³Nirai Kanai² takes shape on the gallery¹s floor from shredded memories. However, the original ³chigiries² are preserved albeit distanced by their photographic documentation and abstraction in faded black and white prints, which hover around Miyagi¹s island. In this way, Miyagi¹s work also addresses inaccessibility in regards to geographic distance and time privileging what is vaguely forgotten over what is clearly remembered and the cultural implications of forgetting. For instance, these ideas are also relayed in a separate project shown here where Miyagi looked at 1960s elusive muse-format love songs such as Walk Away Renee sung by artists of variable sexualities and noted the absence of male lovers. To rectify this omission, Miyagi wrote pop songs about men: ³but I miss you, in a way that people carry lovers pictures, in their wallets warm in their hip pockets, faces, places, voices, memories.² Indeed, this is an instance of the popular romanticism deployed in Futoshi¹s work recalling the examined social structure as in Strangers.
Influenced by artists like Felix Gonzales-Torres, Miyagi seeks to unite conceptual pursuits with a suggestive opulent simplicity and sensitivity. Even if Miyagi¹s artworks are simply words, they include rich linguistic interpolations. Miyagi¹s work also has a poetic character in which an anecdote can be extrapolated from a sense memory. For instance, a fallen puzzle in this show is a notation for an illness suffered by the artist¹s mother. As such, Miyagi is a paradoxical romantic/anti-romantic: an art practitioner whose work arises from forgetting and destroying his vision in a series of dreams.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
|
 | |||||||||||||
Daniel Reich Gallery was last updated: 2008-10-10
Update general information with the Gallery Editor.
Update shows with the Exhibition Manager.
Update inventory with the Inventory Manager.
Update general information with the Gallery Editor.
Update shows with the Exhibition Manager.
Update inventory with the Inventory Manager.
|
© 2005-2008 chelseaartgalleries.com | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
| Site Map |
