Yosuke Amemiya｜WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Art, which has not melted yet.

Yosuke Amemiya｜WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Art, which has not melted yet.

EXHIBITION

I've been talking about V and R since the beginning...
Experiencing WATARI-UM at WATARI-UM,
and imagining this world in this world,
you think about yourself.
The resolution of the place is raised with the body,
and make it multilayered. – Yosuke Amemiya

Yosuke Amemiya's first solo exhibition at a museum in Tokyo.
The earliest works from 25 years ago are shown for the first time since then.
A compilation of his VR works, centering on the latest VR work created at WATARI-UM.


This exhibition provides an overview of artist Yosuke Amemiya’s practice from the beginning to the present. From the works of the early 2000s, the melted apple sculptures, the document video of“Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes”, a paper of “Perfectly Ordinary Stones, Carried For 1,300 Years,” to the latest VR work, which will be filmed at WATARI-UM during the installation for this exhibition, his works provide new art experiences, including talking and speaking, painting images, and elements of songs, musical instruments and dance. In addition, Amemiya will hold the open practice for his final work every Saturday evening, and visitors can witness his creation.





The title of this exhibition, “WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Art, which has not melted yet” is an attempt to gently summon a “continuation of the state before the melting,” or the “past perfect tense” which is in fact what makes art after Duchamp as art. At the same time, this is an attempt to reveal that even the seemingly peaceful and indifferent daily life is in fact the “silence of where war has not yet occurred.”
While using VR HMD (head-mounted display), which is supposed to be designed to casually transport the viewer to “somewhere other than here,” the work rather brings the one back to “here other than somewhere,” attempts to affirm this world itself, and, if it could reach blessing, “this world” and “this world” begin to run side by side in secrecy.
Whispering such a hypothesis to you who are reading this text now, is exactly my own artistic practice and what this exhibition attempts to do.
October 2024, Yosuke Amemiya





For the Swan Song (A public rehearsal toward the final work) by Yosuke Amemiya
Every Saturday during the exhibition term, 17:00-18:00
An artist’s final artwork or writing is called a swan song, referring to the cries of a dying swan.
* Those with a valid ticket to the Yosuke Amemiya exhibition are free to attend.


Live recording of the “Radio which has not melted yet” (YBS)


WORKS

PROFILE

Torajiro Yamada_portrait

Yosuke Amemiya

Currently based in Yamanashi, Japan. He was born in 1975 in Ibaraki. He graduated the Fine Art Course of Sandberg Institute (Amsterdam) with an M.A. degree. He moved to Berlin and was based in Europe for about 10 years until he returned to Japan in 2022. His works consist of various mediums including drawings, sculptures, performances, and many more others. Using common motifs such as apples, stones, and people, he offers the sensation of being transported to a different phase without notice, or an experience of stepping on the gas and brakes of perception at the same time, through his superb technique and unique storytelling style. He participates in many exhibitions and art festivals in Japan and abroad, including “Reborn-Art Festival 2021-22” and “Kunisaki Art Festival”.

Past exhibitions