HMMT? - a selection
April 6, 2006- May 13, 2006
Reception: April 6, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
547 W 27th St
M.Y. Art Prospects PROJECT ROOM is pleased to present a selection of photographs from the HMMT? series by Emi
Anrakuji. Her unsettling self-portraits and other subjects have earned the artist a growing recognition in her home
country, Japan, and this year an American publisher plans to launch several of her monographs.
In HMMT? (an acronym for the phrase “How Many Miles To?”), the artist’s first major photography series, Anrakuji
represents herself as a alchemist of images and a catalyst for daydreams and desires. The vignettes of jigsaw puzzlelike
shots of herself and others blur the boundaries between documentary and staged photography. The artist, posing
naked, clothed, or partially dressed, takes a uniquely obsessive interest in her own body. Her legs, arms, hands, toes,
lips and hair create arresting compositions and erotic ambience. When she focuses on the opposite sex, it results in
surprising elaborations on the image of the phallus. One, created with a handmade kaleidoscope attached to her
camera lens, evokes a kind of mandala. Denying a feminist interpretation, Anrakuji says her work sincerely tries to
capture the sublime and magical power of the phallus itself.
After graduating from art school in Tokyo in the mid-1980s, Anrakuji (b. 1963) suffered a cerebral tumor that prevented
her from making art for more than a decade. During her gradual recovery, she began to produce block prints, then
photographs. Anrakuji takes advantage of a variety of media techniques (such as printmaking) to enhance her
photography.
Emi Anrakuji is this year’s winner of the New Photographer Award at the Higashikawa Photography Prize (Japan).
Other photography awards she has won include International Photography Award’s Fine Art Phogography of the Year,
Fine Art Abstract First Prize (USA), Arbion Art Museum Photography Competition, Grand Prize and Yoshikazu Ueno
Photography Award, Grand Prize (Japan). Her work is in the collection of several important public and private
collections.
Anrakuji’s first color monograph will be published later this year by Nazraeli Press. An advance galley of this publication
will be on display at the exhibition. For more information, please contact info@myartprospects.com or 212 268 7132.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show| Location | | | Gallery | M.Y. Art Prospects | | Address | 547 W 27th St, 2nd Fl New York (Chelsea) NY, 10001 United States | | Phone | 212-268-7132 | | Fax | 212-268-7132 | | Hours | Tue-Sat 11-6 | |
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