Hard Cover, English, Glue Binding, 228 Pages, 2015, Art-Phil
Historically Historic Historical History of Communism
The monograph focuses on a series of the communism works that Yoshinori Niwa has produced in Romania, Russia, and Japan since 2010, around 20 years after the Revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The works such as Tossing Socialists in the Air in Romania (2010), Looking for Vladimir Lenin at Moscow Apartments(2012), Proposing to Hold Up Karl Marx to the Japanese Communist Party (2013), and Celebrating Karl Marx’s Birthday With Japanese Communist Party (2013) approaches with its ironical manner participants and audience and questions the possibility and the impossibility over the political response. The video works that pursue the life and the memory of people living in the post-communism era envelope agitating narratives and the cool perspective of the artist and absurd but humorous gestures of the characters. They have been exhibited so far in “Double Vision: Contemporary Art from Japan” (2012, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art), Aichi Triennale 2013, and “Roppongi Crossing 2013: OUT OF DOUBT” (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), provoking sensational discussions in Japanese contemporary art scene.The super-heavy book with edited video images and subtitles also compiles critics and essays contributed by spirited curators who have collaborated over the world with Yoshinori Niwa. The globally shared theoretical remarks will more investigate the presence of the world history that the artist born in 1980s “with no history” seeks for. What is the state, the politics, the society and the art in which we live at present?
Languages: English, Japanese