AIDA Makoto "Don't expect anything from me any more."（TOKYO）

Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of AIDA Makoto, ‘Don’t expect anything from me any more.’ commencing Wednesday 29th January 2014.

Aida’s last solo show, “Monument for Nothing”, was held at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum from November 2012. In four and a half months it drew over 490,000 visitors. In an all-embracing retrospective covering a range of over twenty years, it surveyed Aida’s work right back to the time of his artistic dé臼碯t.

Now, one year on. In “Don’t expect anything from me any more.” Aida’s first ever work as a film director will be exhibited as the central piece. The film came about in summer 2013 when, as part of his participation in the Setouchi International Art Festival, Aida spent one and a half months living by himself on Ogi Island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, capturing footage with a video camera.

In the resulting work, ‘The Natives @ Ogi Island’, a pseudo-mythical narrative unfolds setting the figures of mysterious tribesmen, who have seemingly appeared through a timeslip, against the backdrop of the small island of Ogi with its ever-declining population. The narrator is a fictional documentary quiz program reporter, who visits the island in the hope of examining the lives of tribesmen to use as material for her quiz questions. The style of the film evokes genuine Japanese TV programs which combine historical documentary with fast-paced quiz show-style summaries of questions, often all narrated by a young female reporter. Dressed up as the tribespeople are various young Japanese artists who like the outdoors.

According to Aida, ‘this film work is an unplanned creation recorded improvisationally in the summer holidays of some grown-ups. Think of it as art without pretension or swagger, and enjoy watching it to the full.`

The film lasts 48 minutes in total and will be screened every hour, on the hour, from 11a.m. onwards. We would be delighted to welcome you to the gallery to see it. (There will be eight screenings a day, the last one starting at 6p.m.) Furthermore, in the gallery’s inner rooms a selection of illustrations and other works Aida has produced will be available to view.

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Winner of the 8th Ango Award

With this exhibition, Aida Makoto has won the 8th annual Ango Award. This prize was created in 2006 to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of the writer Ango Sakaguchi, and is given in recognition to individuals or organizations seen to embody the spirit of Ango by challenging societal conventions and breathing new life into Japanese people’s day to day existences through their work.

The award ceremony will take place on Thursday January 16th 2014 at Niigata City Music and Cultural Hall, during which Aida Makoto will undertake a live painting performance.

The work created at that time will also be exhibited in this forthcoming show “Don’t expect anything from me any more.”

On the occasion of winning the Ango Award, the selection reason given was that Aida makes manifest ‘ the rebellious spirit and the soul of the unrelenting challenger to societal norms which Ango embodied, and which gives to Japanese people great courage and vigour;’ and his life and work is like ‘a compass point guiding us towards tomorrow, leading the way in a stimulating wake up call to modern times, which befits the very essence of the mission statement of the Ango Award.’