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<\/p>\n\u00a9Tam Ochiai,\u00a0photo by Kenji Takahashi<\/p>\n
Tomio Koyama Gallery in Roppongi showed an exhibition of works by New York-based artist Tam Ochiai, titled \u201cItinerary, non?\u201d This was Ochiai\u2019s first solo show in Tokyo since his exhibition \u201cSpies are only revealed when they get caught\u201d at Watari-um in 2010.<\/p>\n
I first met Ochiai in New York, and we rarely have a chance to meet up here in Tokyo, but at the occasion of the \u201cSatellite TV\u201d exhibition that artist Anne Eastman curated in November 2017, we performed \u201covertones & Contagious, M\u201d together at the opening reception. In 2018 we were also involved in the organization of \u201cTV Mountain School 2018,\u201d an event staged in and around the Troedsson Villa in Nikko, so we have been deepening our friendship lately.<\/p>\n
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\u00a9Tam Ochiai,\u00a0photo by Kenji Takahashi<\/p>\n
On show at this exhibition of new works were twelve large paintings, each with a different background color, and representing one month of the year. Painted onto these backgrounds are the names of cities around the word, along with the respective month\u2019s national holidays in each of these cities. The idea is to let the visitor travel around these cities while looking at the paintings. What are the meanings behind such holidays? Being someone who is constantly working on one thing or another, the concept of holidays is alien to me personally, so I consider a \u201choliday\u201d as a type of day that is valid for everyone but myself. But as a matter of course, a holiday is for many a special, pleasant kind of day on which they are allowed to let their hair down. So a \u201choliday\u201d is a day that means different things to different people. Above that, there are various religious, political and other history-related meanings behind the public holidays in cities in different parts of the world. Each of the paintings exhibited here feels in a way like one \u201cmonth\u201d of a calendar. All these different elements contained within the paintings stimulate our imagination. Today we can travel to any city on the globe, and this exhibition inspires the viewer to think about the notions of leaving a country and entering a country that such international travels involve. The permission to leave and enter is only granted after one\u2019s own identity is verified by someone else, and it\u2019s always the viewpoint of that \u201csomeone\u201d that comes into play. The \u201ceyes\u201d in the paintings evoke a similar feeling of strain as if being watched, and at once the tension that naturally comes with the \u201cunknown experience\u201d that is a journey. Expressed here is the gaze of others or one\u2019s own inner observation through which one can rediscover oneself; and the tingling thrill that goes hand in hand with the joy of traveling.<\/p>\n
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\u00a9Tam Ochiai,\u00a0photo by Kenji Takahashi<\/p>\n
\u201cItinerary, non?\u201d is an exhibition that takes the visitor out into the boundless world by means of painting. What Tam Ochiai does is apply and reconstruct the viewpoint of everyday life through the medium of painting, and he does so by employing processes that enable him to incorporate methods including drawing, sculpture, video, performance and poetry. Seeing this exhibition of new paintings was for me an experience that inspired me to go home and create something new myself. I am always impressed by works that provide input for my own creative work, because that\u2019s exactly what life itself is about. In Tam Ochiai\u2019s case, his works are connected to my own ideas, and all I have to do is join the dots.<\/p>\n
Translated by Andreas Stuhlmann<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a9Tam Ochiai,\u00a0photo by Kenji Takahashi Tomio Koyama Gallery in Roppongi showed an exhibition of works by New Yo […]","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":2974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[73],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2972"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/realtokyo.co.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}