Reiko Kanazawa
17 Jun - 10 Jul 2011
REIKO KANAZAWA
I am a cat. As yet I have no name.
17 June - 10 July, 2011
Reiko Kanazawa employs different media such as installation, sculpture, video and text, and questions the diverging perceptions of reality in a poetic manner, particularly focussing on the contrasting vantage points in Japan and the West. Using an artistic strategy characterised to equal degrees by fine irony and a refreshing triviality, Kanazawa attempts to undermine apparently fixed levels of meaning.
In Künstlerhaus Bethanien, among other things, Kanazawa is showing the installation "Katzenmilch" (Cat Milk), an oversized cardboard box, which is painted and pasted to resemble the packaging of a special milk for cats found in German shops. Visitors are invited to crawl into the box and to look out through two holes into two mirrors in cat-eye form, so experiencing the 'world' and the other artworks in the room from a 'cat's level'. The artist took the idea for this work from a popular novel written in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, a satirical observation, from a cats perspective, of a Japanese society that was desperately attempting to combine western and Japanese traditions. In addition, Kanazawa shows a number of paintings based on mountain paintings by anonymous artists, which she has manipulated by covering parts with textiles and 'forging' signatures, as well as a video work referring to two paintings by Schinkel in the Berlin Nationalgalerie, which ironically examines the primacy of interpretation of the artwork.
Reiko Kanazawa is currently participating in the International Studio Programme of Künstlerhaus Bethanien. More info: http://www.reikokanazawa.com
I am a cat. As yet I have no name.
17 June - 10 July, 2011
Reiko Kanazawa employs different media such as installation, sculpture, video and text, and questions the diverging perceptions of reality in a poetic manner, particularly focussing on the contrasting vantage points in Japan and the West. Using an artistic strategy characterised to equal degrees by fine irony and a refreshing triviality, Kanazawa attempts to undermine apparently fixed levels of meaning.
In Künstlerhaus Bethanien, among other things, Kanazawa is showing the installation "Katzenmilch" (Cat Milk), an oversized cardboard box, which is painted and pasted to resemble the packaging of a special milk for cats found in German shops. Visitors are invited to crawl into the box and to look out through two holes into two mirrors in cat-eye form, so experiencing the 'world' and the other artworks in the room from a 'cat's level'. The artist took the idea for this work from a popular novel written in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, a satirical observation, from a cats perspective, of a Japanese society that was desperately attempting to combine western and Japanese traditions. In addition, Kanazawa shows a number of paintings based on mountain paintings by anonymous artists, which she has manipulated by covering parts with textiles and 'forging' signatures, as well as a video work referring to two paintings by Schinkel in the Berlin Nationalgalerie, which ironically examines the primacy of interpretation of the artwork.
Reiko Kanazawa is currently participating in the International Studio Programme of Künstlerhaus Bethanien. More info: http://www.reikokanazawa.com