PARASOPHIA 京都国際現代芸術祭2015

A collaborative project by Parasophia & Temporary Foundation

With the collaboration of excellent domestic and overseas musicians, scientists, philosophers, and men of letters, events called the “Yokohama Trial” will be held throughout [Yokohama Triennale 2014]. The events are referred to with “case” in their titles. This signifies that the events are neither plays, nor lectures, nor performances. “Case” connotes a lawsuit, and in this instance we borrow the style of a courtroom to enlist the participation of our visitors as jurors (a total of 11 will act as jurors, those selected in response to advance announcement and those designated here) and as spectators (numbered tickets are issued the day of the case and the first 20 arrivals can be spectators). While the cases are being held, a sign saying, “In Deliberation” will be posted at the entrance of the red courtroom and entry into the courtroom will be prohibited. It is important that the other visitors not be allowed to enter the courtroom during deliberations; it visualizes the system of “exclusion and selection” as well as the fact that “by being excluded, the visitor is also participating in the game.” (Temporary Foundation)

[Yokohama Trial]
CASE-1: Akira Tatehata & Kenji Kajiya “Impersonal Light”
CASE BY CASE: Rapping the Japanese Constitution by Shing02
CASE-2: Shinsuke Shimojo “Does Free Will Exist?”
CASE-3: Yasumasa Morimura & Shinji Kohmoto “Still Moving”
CASE-4: Masaki Nakamasa “Article 9 of the Dog”

Yasumasa Morimura (Artist; Artistic Director, Yokohama Triennale 2014)
b. 1951 in Osaka; based in Osaka. Graduated from the Kyoto City University of Arts. In 1985, Morimura created Portrait (Van Gogh), a photographic self-portrait of himself dressed as Vincent Van Gogh. He has since continued to create works with the continuous theme of works based on self-portraiture. Many solo exhibitions both in Japan and around the world. In the summer of 2014, a monograph on Morimura and a picture book about Yokohama Triennale 2014 by Morimura were published by Heibonsha in Tokyo, and his question-and-answer book on art by Chikuma Shobō in Tokyo. Yokohama Triennale 2014 (ends November 3), directed by Morimura with the title “ART Fahrenheit 451: Sailing into the sea of oblivion,” and Manifesta 10 (ends October 31), which includes Morimura among the artists participating in the exhibition, also opened in the summer of 2014. Website (in Japanese only): www.morimura-ya.com Yokohama Triennale 2014: www.yokohamatriennale.jp/english/2014
Shinji Kohmoto (Artistic Director, Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture 2015)
Born in Kyoto. Completed the Master’s Program in Design at the Graduate School of Engineering and Design, Kyoto Institute of Technology. Curator at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto from 1981; Chief Curator from 2006 to 2010. Kohmoto was one of the four Artistic Directors of Yokohama 2001: International Triennale of Contemporary Art (2001), the first Yokohama Triennale, subtitled Mega-Wave—Towards a New Synthesis, with fellow artistic directors Nobuo Nakamura, Fumio Nanjo, and Akira Tatehata. He was also on the award jury for the 50th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2003), and the selection committee for the artistic director of Documenta 12 (2007). Exhibitions curated by Kohmoto include Against Nature: Japanese Art in the Eighties (1989), a landmark presentation of contemporary Japanese Art that he co-curated with Kathy Halbreich, Thomas Sokolowski, and Fumio Nanjo, which toured across the United States until 1991; Project for Survival (1996), a cutting-edge exhibition featuring seven artists and projects from the early 1970s to 1996, all underrepresented in Japan up to that point, that deal with the ways an individual or an institution builds relationships with and survives in contemporary society; and William Kentridge—What We See & What We Know: Thinking About History While Walking, and Thus the Drawings Began to Move (2009), one of the biggest solo exhibitions of the artist’s work and the first in Japan, which was awarded for its excellent curation.

Satoru Takahashi (Professor, Kyoto City University of Arts)
BFA, Conceptual Planning of Arts, Kyoto City University of Arts. MFA in Sculpture, School of Art, Yale University. Assistant and Associate Professorships at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Michigan (2001–08). Takahashi collaborates with research institutions and art museums around the world on projects related to art, society, life, medicine, and the environment in order to reposition spatial/temporal arts (architecture, design, sculpture, video, music, literature) and to seek out new modes of expression, based on the perspective of “techniques for survival (creative techniques for living).” Temporary Foundation: www.temporaryfoundation.com/english