Article
Personal care in Japanese
Tadasu Takamine is a visual artist and also a performer. Takamine has held exhibitions in galleries or museums in different cities in the world.
Tadasu Takamine´s works focus on sexuality, humanity and the body.
In his exhibition "God Bless America", the performance artist Tadasu Takamine has used a huge block of clay to create an ani-mated head. The lump of clay constantly sings "God Bless America." Around the head, in a red studio room, caught in the animated picture are frames of the artist and his female assistant eating, drinking, sleeping and making love. It is the obsessive dedication to their work that makes such a wonderful piece.
Some performance art events have been enlivened by the concurrent projection of sexually explicit material on video.
" Takamine´s performance Kimaru-San featured a video of the artist masturbating a friend who is unable to speak or move unaided. In relieving his friend´s sexual tension in this way, Takamine extended the boundaries of traditional ´personal care´, and in presenting the film to audiences he challenged the stereotypical equation of disability with asexuality. As the film was projected, Takamine strapped his head into an ergonomic metal cage, smashing panes of glass with his head and grinding the shards with his forehead. The combination of metal and flesh in this brutal spectacle is a recurrent motif in modern Japanese culture".
Matthew Hunt, www.matthewhunt.com
In his exhibition "God Bless America", the performance artist Tadasu Takamine has used a huge block of clay to create an ani-mated head. The lump of clay constantly sings "God Bless America." Around the head, in a red studio room, caught in the animated picture are frames of the artist and his female assistant eating, drinking, sleeping and making love. It is the obsessive dedication to their work that makes such a wonderful piece.
Some performance art events have been enlivened by the concurrent projection of sexually explicit material on video.
" Takamine´s performance Kimaru-San featured a video of the artist masturbating a friend who is unable to speak or move unaided. In relieving his friend´s sexual tension in this way, Takamine extended the boundaries of traditional ´personal care´, and in presenting the film to audiences he challenged the stereotypical equation of disability with asexuality. As the film was projected, Takamine strapped his head into an ergonomic metal cage, smashing panes of glass with his head and grinding the shards with his forehead. The combination of metal and flesh in this brutal spectacle is a recurrent motif in modern Japanese culture".
Matthew Hunt, www.matthewhunt.com
Author: Karin Bergquist
Bio
1968:Tadasu Takamine was born in
Kagoshima, Japan
Graduated in Kyoto Univ. of Arts & Music, Kyoto (1990).
International Academy of Media-Arts and Sciences, (IAMAS), Gifu (1999).
Lives and works in Gifu, Japan
Selected Recent Solo Exhibitions:
2001:Do What You Want, if You Want as You Want, Kodama Gallery, Osaka, Japan
2000: Fuyu-no-Umi, Contemporary Art Institute, Sapporo, Japan
Muted Space, Voice Gallery, Kyoto, Japan
Selected Recent Group Exhibition:
2003: Venice Biennale (Zone of Urgency), Venice, Italy
Kyushu Riki, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan
Continuity and Transgression, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
2002: Continuity and Transgression, The National Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
2001: Facts of Life: Japanese Contemporary Art, Paris, France
EXIT, Cretail Maison des Arts, Paris, France
2000: Confessions of a Voyeur, Istanbul, Turkey
1999: GENDIA, Glen Eira City Gallery, Glen Eira, Australia
SKIN DIVE, Tatsuike Primary School, Kyoto, Japan
Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, Toronto, Canada
Media City, Artcite, Windsor, Canada
2000 Fuyu-no-Umi, CAI (Contemporary Art Institute), Sapporo, Japan
Confessions of a Voyeur, Dulcinea, Bodrum Kat, Istanbul, Turkey
2001 EXIT, Cretail Maison des Arts, Paris, France
Selected Resent Performances:
2002: Kimura-san, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, United Kingdom
2001: Kimura-san, Artlink Café, SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan
1999: Consilience (collaboration with P. Bodin), Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Canada
K.I.T., ICC Inter Communication Center, Tokyo, Japan
Kagoshima, Japan
Graduated in Kyoto Univ. of Arts & Music, Kyoto (1990).
International Academy of Media-Arts and Sciences, (IAMAS), Gifu (1999).
Lives and works in Gifu, Japan
Selected Recent Solo Exhibitions:
2001:Do What You Want, if You Want as You Want, Kodama Gallery, Osaka, Japan
2000: Fuyu-no-Umi, Contemporary Art Institute, Sapporo, Japan
Muted Space, Voice Gallery, Kyoto, Japan
Selected Recent Group Exhibition:
2003: Venice Biennale (Zone of Urgency), Venice, Italy
Kyushu Riki, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto, Japan
Continuity and Transgression, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
2002: Continuity and Transgression, The National Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
2001: Facts of Life: Japanese Contemporary Art, Paris, France
EXIT, Cretail Maison des Arts, Paris, France
2000: Confessions of a Voyeur, Istanbul, Turkey
1999: GENDIA, Glen Eira City Gallery, Glen Eira, Australia
SKIN DIVE, Tatsuike Primary School, Kyoto, Japan
Images Festival of Independent Film & Video, Toronto, Canada
Media City, Artcite, Windsor, Canada
2000 Fuyu-no-Umi, CAI (Contemporary Art Institute), Sapporo, Japan
Confessions of a Voyeur, Dulcinea, Bodrum Kat, Istanbul, Turkey
2001 EXIT, Cretail Maison des Arts, Paris, France
Selected Resent Performances:
2002: Kimura-san, IKON Gallery, Birmingham, United Kingdom
2001: Kimura-san, Artlink Café, SCAI the Bathhouse, Tokyo, Japan
1999: Consilience (collaboration with P. Bodin), Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Canada
K.I.T., ICC Inter Communication Center, Tokyo, Japan
Projects
This artist took part in the following project(s) organized/funded by the culturebase.net partner institutions.
Images of Asia
(08 August 03 - 26 September 03)
