"Nikkei XTREND" features "EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow," a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which will open in November 2021.

(Excerpt from the article)

A statue "forever unseen" touched in the dark. EUGENE STUDIO's solo Exhibition.

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"EUGENE STUDIO After the rainbow" is the first solo exhibition by a Heisei-born artist to be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. EUGENE STUDIO is now attracting increasing attention in the international art scene. Daisuke Miyatsu, President of Yokohama University of Art and Design, explains the highlights of this solo exhibition.

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"...Passing through the white cube with rows of white canvases, visitors step into the next space, where the world of the new work, 'Critical' (2021), unfolds. The installation, an open-air atrium from the second basement floor to the second floor above ground, is surrounded by mirrors, creating the illusion of an endless horizon. The entire floor is like an ocean with rippling waves lapping against it.
The English title "Critical," which means "Sea bed" in Japanese, refers to the border of the sea, or a critical point that represents a margin or boundary. ..."

"...The work was inspired by the fact that the exhibition space is less than zero meters above sea level. The area around the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which was located along Tokyo Bay in the Edo period and has taken on its present appearance through repeated land reclamation, implies that if global warming continues and the sea level continues to rise, there is a possibility that the area will be submerged under the sea.
This English title also seems to encompass the meaning of the Spratly Islands, the Senkaku Islands, and the territorial waters and territorial disputes over Takeshima, as well as the political issues of territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ), which are originally connected, but in which national and ethnic interests clash. Furthermore, the word "criticality" means a state in which the equilibrium between the production and loss of neutrons in a fission chain reaction is maintained and the reaction is sustained. The association with this may be the friction in Asia over the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean. ..."

"...After experiencing the same work, one may be reminded of the strength of imagination given only to human beings. Humans have been inspired by such primordial prayers as the Lascaux cave murals and the Jomon clay figurines; they have felt the sanctity of the Western Wall even after the prohibition of idolatry; they have found the sublime in the several bands of color that the American painter Barnett Newman (1905-1970) painted on the colored surfaces. ..."

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