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Eric LoPresti "Center-Surround"
Koki Arts
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Eric LoPresti
KOKI ARTS is pleased to present Center-Surround, a video and painting exhibition by Eric LoPresti. Center-Surround is a two-hour multi-channel video which counts off each of the 2,427 nuclear explosions in history, pairing each one with a martial arts fall. This video is accompanied by three works on paper from the artist’s Rocks and Tapes series.
LoPresti created Center-Surround to address two questions. First, how can individual people live under the existential threat of nuclear weapons? Second, considering the horrific power of these devices to terrorize civilians and the fact that they persist despite 75 years of global protest, what can any one person do? LoPresti feels personally implicated in the nuclear issue as he grew up near the Hanford site, part of the Manhattan Project. Hanford was partially responsible for the bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and for the plutonium which powered the US nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.
LoPresti practices aikido at NY Aikikai, an affiliate of Aikikai in Tokyo. He says “I wanted a representation which was both intimate and pushed beyond our usual emotion of fear, so I assembled a diverse team of aikidoists to perform an aikido throw and breakfall for every detonation in history.” As of August 2022, there have been 2,427 atomic blasts worldwide, a number LoPresti researched for this project with nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein.
The accompanying Rocks and Tapes paintings continue LoPresti’s exploration of disaster and control by invoking environmental themes. The works on paper are based on imagery of rock falls in the deserts of California overlaid with trompe l'oeil tape marks relating to the color slides of the Center-Surround. They imply an evolving relationship between the human-made and the natural even as, to many, the world feels to be falling apart.
[Related Event]
Artist Talk
Date: August 19(Fri) 18:00-19:00
Venue: Koki Arts
LoPresti created Center-Surround to address two questions. First, how can individual people live under the existential threat of nuclear weapons? Second, considering the horrific power of these devices to terrorize civilians and the fact that they persist despite 75 years of global protest, what can any one person do? LoPresti feels personally implicated in the nuclear issue as he grew up near the Hanford site, part of the Manhattan Project. Hanford was partially responsible for the bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and for the plutonium which powered the US nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.
LoPresti practices aikido at NY Aikikai, an affiliate of Aikikai in Tokyo. He says “I wanted a representation which was both intimate and pushed beyond our usual emotion of fear, so I assembled a diverse team of aikidoists to perform an aikido throw and breakfall for every detonation in history.” As of August 2022, there have been 2,427 atomic blasts worldwide, a number LoPresti researched for this project with nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein.
The accompanying Rocks and Tapes paintings continue LoPresti’s exploration of disaster and control by invoking environmental themes. The works on paper are based on imagery of rock falls in the deserts of California overlaid with trompe l'oeil tape marks relating to the color slides of the Center-Surround. They imply an evolving relationship between the human-made and the natural even as, to many, the world feels to be falling apart.
[Related Event]
Artist Talk
Date: August 19(Fri) 18:00-19:00
Venue: Koki Arts
Schedule | Aug 15 (Mon) 2022-Aug 21 (Sun) 2022 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Venue | Koki Arts http://www.kokiarts.com/  | ||||
| Location | 1F Rose Bldg., 1-15-2 Higashi Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0031 | ||||
| Access | 1 minute walk from exit 4 at JR Bakurocho Station, 3 minute walk from exit A1 at Bakuro-yokoyama Station on the Toei Shinjuku line, 6 minute walk from exit B4 at Higashi-nihombashi Station on the Toei Asakusa line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-3865-8650 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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