Representing the country of Japan at the 54th Venice Biennale, Tabaimo challenges visitors to question their perceptions of up and down, interior and exterior, and immerse them in a destabilization of senses. Tabaimo is recognized as one of the country’s foremost artists. She incorporates the distinct attributes of the Takamasa Yoshizaka-designed Japan Pavilion in the Giardini, creating an experience with a variety of mediums.
The title of the exhibit, “teleco-soup,” was coined by Tabaimo and suggests an “inversion of soup,” or a reversal of the relationship between solid and fluid, land and water. It asks visitors to question their relationship to the world around them. The term builds upon Japan’s engagement with its identity as an island state and what that means with respect to Japan’s relationship to the world around it.
The structure of the exhibition physically manifests a proverb attributed to the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi that states, “A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.” Following in the spirit of the Japanese addendum to the proverb, “But it knows the height of the sky,” Tabaimo physically transforms the interior of the Japanese Pavilion, through the use of multi-channel animation projection and mirrors into a well, while opening the remaining space to the sky.
The animation begins from the smallest part of life, a cell. It then continues to grow into increasingly larger forms, including an image of the artist herself, until it shows all the people in Japan and Japanese society as a whole. The continuous expansion allows the visitors to experience the seemingly infinite depth and width of the well, which represents contemporary Japan.
The Pavilion of Japan is commissioned by the National Museum of Art, Osaka and curated by the National Museum’s Yuka Uematsu. The exhibition is provided with special support of the Ishibashi Foundation, in special cooperation with NEC Display Solutions, Ltd., and supported by Kyoto University of Art and Design, Soichiro Fukutake, the Obayashi Foundation, and Sumiko Ito.
“teleco-soup” is on view through November 27, 2011. More information can be found at the Japan Pavilion official website: http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/.
All images:
TABAIMO
teleco-soup, 2011 (projection still)
54th International Art Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia 2011 —
Japan Pavilion, Giardini di Castello, Venice
Copyright the artist
Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York/Shanghai
