HELEN MIRRA

Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce Hourly directional field notation, Bretagne, our second solo exhibition with artist Helen Mirra, the first to be presented within the Tokyo gallery space. Mirra previously exhibited with Taka Ishii Gallery (Kyoto, 2009); her work was also included in the group exhibition Set, Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo, 2005) with Lisa Lapinski and Yuki Kimura. Mirra’s recent projects include gehend (Field Recordings 1-3) at Bonner Kunsteverein (Bonn, 2011), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin, 2011) and Haus Konstruktiv (Zurich, 2012), Farbenweg, indirekter, architecturally embedded among the houses of the Universalmuseum Joanneum (Graz, 2011), Instance the Determination at the University of Chicago (2006), the book Cloud, the, 3, with an afterword by Lyn Hejinian (JRP Ringier/Christoph Keller Editions, 2007), and a GSA Art in Architecture project at the Minnesota – Canada border (2010). Mirra’s work is presently included in both the 30th Bienal de São Paulo and Les Ateliers de Rennes, France.

Mirra’s present rhythm of working takes the form of a kind of paced printmaking, made through walking. The printmaking is not descriptive of the place, but instead the process is an extended chance procedure. The activities are interdependent; the walking structures the printing, and the printing impels the walking. This rhythm is nestled into a cycle of exhibitions that perpetuates the project. This procedure began in 2010 in Massachusetts, and then continued in Emilia Romagna Italy, Southern Sweden, the Taconic Range in the Northeastern US, the Arizonan Sonoran Desert, and Bretagne France. The gallery will present works from the Bretagne walks. From 9 October – 6 November Mirra will walk in Western Japan, producing works that will then be exhibited elsewhere. In addition to the prints, Mirra’s walking in Bretagne was substantiated through a series of terse field notes made over the seven hour course of each day; these notes ultimately serving as text for typewritten 16mm cotton lines, each hour represented by a one meter long line.