MOTOMIYA KAORU

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This exhibition commemorates the late artist MOTOMIYA Kaoru (1963–2022). Since Motomiya’s sudden passing on December 1, 2022, considerable time has been required to organize the artworks and archival materials she left behind. Through the curatorial initiative of NAKAZAWA Hideki, together with the cooperation of the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection and Mizuma Art Gallery, this memorial exhibition has now been brought to fruition.

Beginning her artistic practice in the 1990s, Motomiya focused on the relationship between the human body and its surrounding environment, presenting numerous installations both in Japan and internationally. Among these, the “Trace the Skin_”_ series, developed around the year 2000, stands as a significant project that reexamined the boundaries and identity of the self.

The exhibition will feature a reinstallation of Motomiya’s representative work “Internal Dress” (2000, Takahashi Ryutaro Collection), which has been preserved in perfect condition. Composed of fowling net and approximately 8,000 marshmallows, the work conceives of the digestive tract—which absorbs food into the body—as a second skin. By reversing the relationship between interior and exterior and rendering it visible as a surface exceeding 30 square meters, the work transforms it into a delicate garment extending outward into the surrounding environment that constitutes everyday life.

Motomiya also left behind a substantial body of video works. Some exist as independent moving-image pieces, while others functioned as essential components of installations or as documentation of the long-term project “Restoration Regeneration,” developed throughout the 2000s through encounters with people, other living beings, and environments around the world. The exhibition will screen “Overflow,” a representative work from the “Canon on the Table” project developed around 2002, among other works.

According to the artist’s own classification of her work during her lifetime, her oeuvre consisted of nineteen projects in total. Many involved overseas site-specific exhibitions and process-based practices, and consequently, much of the surviving material exists in fragmentary form, as elements, documents, or archival remnants. In conjunction with the exhibition, a text by KAMIYAMA Ryoko (curator and researcher of postwar Japanese art history), who participated in part of the ongoing research into these works, will be published.

Motomiya, who also presented research in the field of history of medical art, worked in her early career as a graphic designer and later became a certified instructor in both the Urasenke tea ceremony tradition and the KOZAN-RYU school of ikebana. These aspects of her multifaceted career will be reflected in the chronology prepared by the curator.

This exhibition seeks to illuminate the trajectory of an artist whose life ended at the age of 58, as well as the breadth of her thought and practice.

— NAKAZAWA Hideki, Artist

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【Artist Profile】

MOTOMIYA Kaoru (1963–2022)

Born in Tokyo. Motomiya presented mixed-media installations exploring the relationship between society and the environment in more than eight countries. In 1998, Motomiya received the Philip Morris Art Award 1998. In 2003, Motomiya received the Audience Award at the International New Media Art Festival Videomedeja (Serbia and Montenegro).