When we enter this gallery, we encounter small gold-colored paintings lined up on the walls. Looking at them more closely, we notice that people’s names have been written on the picture planes in characteristic fonts which also seem to have been embossed. Names found in the pictures include Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, and Janet Leigh among others. The names are those of the actresses from movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. What we encounter in this exhibition are the “letters” constituting the actresses’ names found in title backgrounds appearing on screens at the beginning of movies. Why can I say this for sure? There is only one answer - because I know the names of the actresses and movies written in these pictures. Films directed by Hitchcock include Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960). You guessed it: I’m a fan of Hitchcock’s films. An exhibition entitled “Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock and Contemporary Art”^*1 was held in 2001. It seems that many people involved in the art field are familiar with his movies. Simon Morley, the artist whose works are shown in this exhibition, is also an aficionado of films directed by Hitchcock.

    Here again, the color of the picture planes is gold. There are only letters. Nevertheless, the golden pictures will be transformed into screens and the “actresses”, known as “Hitchcock Blondes”, will be shown there through the film projectors.
    This exhibition space will make us perform psychological plays together with the exhibits using such stealthy gismos - I would like to also call them a kind of “Hitchcock Touch”. Would you like to know about the details of the psychological plays? If so, I recommend you visit the gallery.

※1

“Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock and Contemporary Art”: Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 4 Apr 2001-17 Jun 2001