Yokohama Triennale

Yokohama Triennale 2008

13 Sep - 30 Nov 2008

YOKOHAMA TRIENNALE 2008
TIME CREVASSE
13 September - 30 November

Artistic Director:
Mizusawa Tsutomu

Curators:
Daniel Birnbaum
Hu Fang
Miyake Akiko
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Beatrix Ruf

Through this major international exhibition in Yokohama, I aim to reaffirm the boundless energy that art affords us.
Art shakes up our everyday perceptions. It gives us glimpses of the "abyss" we normally fail to notice, or perhaps pretend not to notice. It can horrify us, give us courage, console us, or provide us with what we need to face life.
Art's bounty is not secured by novelty. When ancient Greek texts speak to us in a clear, familiar tone, like works penned only yesterday by our cultural peers; when music from the distant past of an unfamiliar land seems as fresh to our ears as if it had only just been composed; when we marvel at the aesthetic feats achieved at old religious sites with little or no connection to our own cultural tradition-in such moments, again and again we are reminded that being "new" is not what gives art its depth and impact.
One could say that the new/old paradigm is sustained by a rigid world view in which time is regarded as strictly linear. In the contemporary world, advanced information technology seems to be standardizing time and space to a single measure. One gets the sense, however, that this very standardization is paradoxically creating a host of schisms, and that we, perhaps more so than any other people throughout human history, are thereby being forced to live a divided, fragmented existence.
Time flows along multiple axes. But that fact is not by itself the source of cultural and artistic enrichment. What happens, rather, is that now and then different aspects of time twist, swirl, and collide with one another, creating unexpected fissures and faults through which the underlying abyss can be glimpsed.
It seems to me that art arises when we confront that abyss squarely and, by waiting attentively at the edges of what I call "time crevasses," we scrupulously register various forms of mutual differentiation—individual or social differences, differences of nationality, gender, generation, ethnicity, religion, and so on-including the particular circumstances in which we ourselves are currently situated.
A crevasse that opens up in a field of snow is a very "beautiful" sight. But at the same time, art has the power to dispel the temptation to let ourselves fall into such crevasses. It is also an act of bridging those gaps so that people can communicate and interact through them.
Yokohama is an ideal site for the building of such bridges through art because it is a comparatively young city, having opened up to the world only some 150 years ago. I sincerely hope that the third Yokohama Triennale will constitute for Yokohama an important step forward in its cultural maturation, and it is with this hope that I have chosen "Time Crevasse" as the overall theme for the exhibition.

Tsutomu Mizusawa
November 2006

Artists:

Marina Abramović (Serbia)
Arakawa Ei with Mukai Mari (Japan)
John M. Armleder (Switzerland)
Matthew Barney (USA)
Jérôme Bel (France)
Ulla von Brandenburg (Germany)
Cao Fei (China)
Paul Chan (China / USA)
Chelfitsh (Okada Toshiki) (Japan)
Cho Minsuk and Joseph Grima with Storefront Team (Korea + USA)
Nikhil Chopra (India)
Tony Conrad (USA)
Keren Cytter (Israel)
Hanne Darboven (Germany)
Trisha Donnelly (USA)
Elmgreen & Dragset (Denmark&Norway)
Peter Fischli & David Weiss (Switzerland)
Didier Fiúza Faustino (France)
Luke Fowler with Tsunoda Toshiya (UK + Japan)
Mario García Torres (Mexico)
Douglas Gordon (UK)
Rodney Graham (Canada)
Shilpa Gupta (India)
Haino Keiji (Japan)
Sharon Hayes (USA)
Christian Holstad (USA)
Kuswidananto a.k.a Jompet (Indonesia)
Joan Jonas (USA)
Miranda July (USA)
Mike Kelley (USA)
Hassan Khan (Egypt)
Pichet Klunchun (Thailand)
Terence Koh (China / USA)
Kosugi Takehisa (Japan)
Mark Leckey (UK)
Tim Lee (Korea / Canada)
Jorge Macchi and Edgardo Rudnitzky (Argentina)
Paul McCarthy (USA)
Jonathan Meese (Germany)
Gustav Metzger (Germany / UK)
Naito Rei (Japan)
Nakanishi Natsuyuki (Japan)
Nakaya Fujiko (Japan)
Hermann Nitsch (Austria)
Ohmaki Shinji (Japan)
Ono Yoko (Japan)
Pak Sheung Chuen (China)
Philippe Parreno (France)
Falke Pisano (Netherlands)
Michelangelo Pistoletto (Italy)
Mathias Poledna (Austria)
Stephen Prina (USA)
Nick Relph and Oliver Payne (UK)
Pedro Reyes (Mexico)
Jimmy Robert (Guadeloup)
Sasamoto Aki (Japan)
Tino Sehgal (UK / Germany)
Tanaka Min (Japan)
Teshigawara Saburo (Japan)
Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thailand / USA)
Tsui Kuang-Yu (Taiwan)
Danh Vo (Viet Nam / Denmark)
Tris Vonna-Michell (UK)
Claude Wampler (USA)
Cerith Wyn Evans with Throbbing Gristle (UK)

 

Tags: Marina Abramović, Ei Arakawa, John M. Armleder, Matthew Barney, Jérôme Bel, Ulla von Brandenburg, Paul Chan, Nikhil Chopra, Pak Sheung Chuen, Tony Conrad, Keren Cytter, Hanne Darboven, Trisha Donnelly, Elmgreen & Dragset, Elmgreen&Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Didier Fiuza Faustino, Cao Fei, Luke Fowler, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Shilpa Gupta, Sharon Hayes, Christian Holstad, Joan Jonas, Miranda July, Mike Kelley, Hassan Khan, Terence Koh, Tsui Kuang-Yu, Mark Leckey, Tim Lee, Jorge Macchi, Paul McCarthy, Jonathan Meese, Gustav Metzger, Hermann Nitsch, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Philippe Parreno, Al Payne, Oliver Payne, Falke Pisano, Michelangelo Pistoletto, M. Pistoletto, Mathias Poledna, Stephen Prina, Nick Relph, Pedro Reyes, Jimmy Robert, Tino Sehgal, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mario Garcia Torres, Danh Vo, Tris Vonna-Michell, Fischli & Weiss