TATSUO MIYAJIMA
9 September - 30 October 2005
Mega Death [installation view] 1999
CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ART PROJECTS SA 2005 presents Project 9 TATSUO MIYAJIMA
Tatsuo Miyajima lives and works in Japan. He gained international recognition in 1988 when he presented Sea of Time at the Venice Biennale. The work was minimal, conceptual and tranquil, consisting of 300 digital LED counters randomly placed on the floor in darkness, recording the passage of time at different paces. Miyajima's works form an endless text on time. Each work is always undergoing change and records the passage of time in its relationship to different things. It is not a concept of time that can be seen, but its continuous flow and change can be felt. Miyajima's works visualize this invisible movement of time. The artist also focuses on making the viewer aware of the clock that is inherent in the human body.
In 2002, Artsonje Museum and Artsonje Center in Seoul, Korea, commissioned a new work by Miyajima - Counter Voice in Water - a video performance with Korean artists and curators. In this work, performed numbers went from one through nine; zero as a number did not exist for the artist. For Miyajima, zero is not a concept that expresses nihilism and nothingness, but rather shows void and emptiness. This idea, which Miyajima first encountered in the numerical system of India circa 5th century B.C., is also the same as the Buddhist concept of nothingness, signified by the empty bowl.
In Adelaide, Miyajima will make the major new video work Counter Voice in Milk filming 30 local people [including Helpmann Academy students] - male, female, young, old, artists and others, english speaking and other languages. The exhibition of this new work, along with previously made Counter Voice video works, will be held at the CACSA gallery in the largest exhibition of Miyajima's work yet held in Australia.
Miyajima has exhibited in major exhibitions including the 1999 Asia-Pacific Triennial in Brisbane; the Venice Biennale; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; National Museum of Modern Art, Japan; Taipei Biennial, Taiwan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; and National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. He has work in the collections of the Tate Gallery London, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney and Queensland Art Gallery.
Tatsuo Miyajima's first visit to Adelaide, sponsored by the Japan Foundation, Tokyo, is a major event within the CACSA's CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ART PROJECTS SA program for 2005. His Adelaide residency has been supported by the SA School of Art and the School of Communication, Information & New Media, University SA and the Helpmann Academy.
Catalogue essay by Kim Sun Jung
