The Kiss

  • Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019

    The Kiss, 2019

    Photo: Ito Tetsuo

Over the past ten-odd years, it has become a natural habit of sorts that we hold smartphones in our hands. Such devices have become objects that are so close to our bodies that they are now almost parts of it. Never before have we been moved as strongly as by the flood of information that spills over from their small screens, and that has introduced entirely new forms of meeting, passing and parting with others. This work was inspired by the question what a monument would have to be like to function as a symbol of our age. While the sculpture of large hands itself is reminiscent of enlightening socialist monuments, the screens these hands hold up are facing each other to made it look as if the faces shown on them were kissing. However one may also see them as two separate photographs of people that just happened to have their eyes closed. The fact that the hand sculpture is easy to copy, as that part was created by outputting data using a 3-D printer, gives the sculpture a sort of lightness that is yet different from that of enlightening monuments, and thereby adds a notion of uncertainty to the things this work symbolizes.

exonemo

  • Formed 1996 in Tokyo, Japan
  • Based in New York, USA
  • Photo: Niko

Formed online in 1996 by Sembo Kensuke and Akaiwa Yae, artist duo exonemo has created and presented works that deal with the internet itself, from its advent to the present day. Exhibiting a unique hacking sensibility, they have expanded their activities to include exhibiting works and staging performances in the real world, from 2000 onward. As seen in their rendering of "the internet landscape" Natural Process, a pixelated recreation of the Google search engine home page (www.google.com) meticulously painted with acrylic, exonemo takes an exceptionally keen and humorous approach to connecting the virtual space with the physical. Other activities include IDPW (commonly known as "I pass"), a community of some ten artists formed in 2012. IDPW organizes Internet Yami-Ichi, a flea market inserted into the real world that represents commercial transactions on the internet. To date, the market has spread to over 20 cities across the world.

Selected Works & Awards

2019 ARTPORT: SUNRISE/SUNSET, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA
2018 Hello World: for the Post-Human Age, The Contemporary Art Galley, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan
2012 Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2012, How Physical, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
2011 Ways of Worldmaking, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
2006 Prix Ars Electronica 2006, Linz, Austria, Net Vision, Golden Nica

Map

Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (10F)

Address

Aichi Arts Center 10F
1-13-2 Higashisakura,Higashi-ku, Nagoya
461-8525 JAPAN

Open

10:00-18:00
(Fri -20:00)
Admission until
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before closing

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Mondays (Except for National Holidays)

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Access

・5 minutes on foot from Sakae Station on the Higashiyama Subway Line or Meijo Subway Line.
・5 minutes on foot from Sakae-Machi Station on the Meitetsu Seto Line.

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+81-52-971-6111