Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to present KiyaKiya, KONDOH Akino's first solo exhibition in 3 years. Kondoh has been working in New York where she established herself in the autumn 2008.

The artist, who in 2010 received a Youtube Play Award for her animation "Ladybirds' Requiem (digest version)" at the Guggenheim Museum and took part in Domani: The Art of Tomorrow at the National Art Center, is widely active at home and abroad.

The present exhibition includes Kondoh's new animation work "KiyaKiya" as well as drawings, oil paintings and sketches. The term "KiyaKiya" comes from the old Japanese expression "mune ga kiyakiya suru." Kondoh first encountered it in Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's “Introduction to the collection of girls”in the chapter writen about "childhood experiences." This expression, which describes “an enigmatic, nostalgic, disturbing feeling,” or an impression of “deja-vu”, is at the origin of the "KiyaKiya" series.

In the animation, a girl is performing "kamishibai" (a traditional Japanese picture-story show). We the artist noticed the time gap between the front and the back of the illustration cards (the episode of the story the audience is listening to is written on the back of the previous card; that is to say there is a 1 page difference between the front and the back of the "kamishibai" cards) she says she felt the possibility of a different dimension hidden right behind the everyday life.

Three worlds simultaneously develop in the work. The same girl, who exists in the three of them, lives all three different times. These tracks curve slowly, eventually .ing and switching directions and she continuously circle these orbits in an endless repetition.

This is one of Kondoh's memories.
"When I was a child, there was a book I always used to read when I went to the hospital. One day as I was reading it as usual, the end was different. When I re-read it again some times later, it was back to normal."

In our everyday routine, there are some moments when we suddenly feel like something is different; something unexpectable, like in the artist's memory, appears to have some kind of reality. This impression is at the core of the animation work.

Kondoh says "very intimate things are easier to share with strangers than public ones." In the present exhibition, you will experience a uneasy and nostalgic feeling, as if you had long forgotten an important something and were about to remember it. Some memory locked down in your heart might very well resurface.

* The text provided by Mizuma Art Gallery.

Period: Tuesday, October 11 - Saturday, November 12, 2011
Venue: Mizuma Art Gallery