Ship, Reaching, Shore at Talion Gallery / Tokio

Ship, Reaching, Shore 
Manami Seki, Kai Maetani, Haruka Matsumoto
 
September 4 - October 3, 2021

Talion Gallery 
Tokyo



















Talion gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the group exhibition “Ship, Reaching, Shore” by Manami Seki, Kai Maetani and Haruka Matsumoto. 

The exhibition will be consisted of three artists' approaches and departures to/from the entangled intersection with clues of patterns and logics that connect deeply to each of their working methods.

Manami Seki is working thgrough following the exchanging process between language and image by juxtaposing representative spaces within some different levels, such as physical space and two dimensional paper or display. Recently, she presents performance works which respond to human language and body behaviors dealing with the sequential process of programs and systems. Putting himself in the place like a potential void within a group conformity such as at a room of capsule hotel, underfloor of house and on a stage of play, Kai Maetani creates photographic works which leave tracks of his own acts and body through releasing a shutter to himself. His recent works apply the method of self portrait, visiting hills and coasts which are gaps and cut sections between the towns to capture the relationship of sceneries and bodies. Through going to the fringe of incidents reported in mass media, Haruka Matsumoto tries to re-experience the happening and creates her works from images of the persons concerned, mainly with prints using method of lithography. The sight and detailed collage of local color which were accessible through walking the scene bring verbose figurativeness into one print. At the same time, the absence which cannot be recovered greatly stands out in a picture with overlapped images of parties substituting artist·s portrait for their figures. 

The title “Ship, Reaching, Shore” is an incorporeal questioning itself and an intersection point where plural rephrased paradoxes are layered on. Through their unique approaches (or departs), the figurative representation of paradox and paradox which is inherent in the figure will be presented at the exhibition.

"In order for the word “I” to become meaningful, it is necessary to be said by someone. However, as soon as it was stated, this word “I” is understood as infinitely replaceable subject. It is possible to say “I” by anyone, but the contents of “I” varies for individuals. Thus “Individuality” is “universally replaceable”." (Hayato Saigo, Shigeru Taguchi "What is 'Reality'? A transformation of the world view starting from mathematics and philosophy” Chikuma Shobo, 2019, Kindle No.1719-1722) I was vaguely aware of that the student riding road bike whom I passed in the morning is not one but actually three. It is not that the world mechanism went wrong as I left home earlier so that the point where I pass them deviates, but I just understood well. (April 15, 2019, Twitter)

Manami Seki 

John Stilgoe who is a historian and also a photographer thought that etymology of “landscape” is from old Frisian language “landschop” = “shoveled land”. He imagined “landschop” as the act of throwing shoveled soils from the land to the sea (seeing the sea from the land) at the scene of Dutch reclamation and stated that when “landschop” was modified in English language, in the process sounds and meanings were changed, it becomes “landskip” = “landmark for sailor to recognize the land” (seeing the land from the sea) and changed as current “landscape”. Whenever I go to mountains and coasts at night for shooting, I feel with all my senses that I am surrounded by non-human beings. I started thinking if the scenery supposed to be seen by us is oppositely seeing me, as I felt like my body was melting into darkness when I walked inside the dark while checking footholds. I'll try to be caught between the bodies looked back, alien visions by cameras and scenery ever untouched somehow, at least. 

Kai Maetani

“Conclusion of the Battle, the Stone that wants to be back"
The very next day after I was asked about my practice by colleague M and told the story of my work “Almaguer Island (story of grandmother and grandaunt)”, I received a stone by M. The large stone filled a nylon shopping bag as it was inflated to limit. There are patterns as like bloods soak into the stone everywhere on it. The stone is belonged to M’s father. When he went to Corregidor Island on a business trip, he took a stone called blood stone which scattered on where a fierce battle was fought before.
“I guess my father thought as like his brother not coming back from Philippine was willing to go home, and could not help bringing back it instead of his remains.” The stone is displayed at displayed at entrance of M’s father’s house. Three years has passed since I made “Blood stone and Spider (Mt. Takahata / Corregidor Island)”. The other day, I visited a certain area in Wakayama prefecture to pick up stones. In this area, there is a legend of blood stone called “Spider blood stone (Kumo-chi-ishi)”. The name of stone is derived from the story that monster spider’s blood who fought with Sakanoue no Tamuramaro dyed white rocks of the mountain. At now the battlefield becomes a golf course, and only the place name Shira-iwa (white stone) is remained. It was unable to confirm the existence of stone even from parishioner of neighboring temple. Nobody can tell whether stones picked up from this area is blood stone or not, but for me, this is the blood stone. It is said that when stone is carried out from the mountain, it cries saying “Bring me back there”. If the stone cries saying “I want be back” during the exhibition, I will also bring it back to that mountain.
I am thinking about thoughts and acts of people when they work out a deal with incident that nobody will know anymore. It’s like a endless battle. I wonder where the work starts and where it ends. I have been working with a clue of images from mass media and hearsay, but I often come back to the fringe of occurrence which gave me a chance to create the work. They were given a form once, and not be concluded even now. I traced the details of events oppositely as like as considering right time to return the stone.

Haruka Matsumoto