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Mari Katayama "Cavern"
Gallery Ether
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Mari Katayama
This exhibition features works from “Possession”, “Just One of Those Things” and “Leave-Taking” alongside new drawings and two new photo series “Calypso” and “Study for Caryatid.”
Katayama creates self-portraits incorporating hand-sewn objects and her prosthetics, as well as various installations featuring these objects. Since establishing her studio in Gunma, Japan in 2019, she has concentrated on the relationship between the human body and artwork in relation to the society in which they exist. She describes these past four years spent in her studio as “being in a cave”, a mysterious space cut off from contact with the outside world, and bringing to mind the story of Calypso and Odysseus in Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey”.
Katayama has been groping in the darkness of this cave, creating secret relationships with the objects within. “Just One of Those Things” (2021), created in conjunction with the resumption of the High Heel Project she began in 2011, offers more choices as a response to social norms and the “correct body”. It is an appeal to us to realize that there is no personal freedom that should be willingly forfeited. Then, in “Leave-taking” (2021) and “Possession” (2022), the question of “letting go of/owning” the labels attached to others and ourselves. Katayama, by questioning the relationship between her own body, which she has used to create her ideal, and the objects she creates, can engage in a dialogue with her inner self.
In her new work, “Study for Caryatid” (2023), Katayama attempts to situate the object/self-relationship that was established in “Leave-taking” and “Possession” into a more social context. The “caryatid” of this work's title refers to the standing female figures sometimes found in place of columns to support beams in ancient Greek temple architecture. The “caryatid” can appear to stand firm between heaven and earth, or to be chained to both. In "Study for Caryatid", there may be invisible chains tying down Katayama's body, yet it evokes not the heaviness of these chains, but the lightness of being free while bound by them.
Against the backdrop of the tale of Calypso and Odysseus, Katayama looks back on the secret relationships she created in the four years of her cave-like period of creation.
Katayama creates self-portraits incorporating hand-sewn objects and her prosthetics, as well as various installations featuring these objects. Since establishing her studio in Gunma, Japan in 2019, she has concentrated on the relationship between the human body and artwork in relation to the society in which they exist. She describes these past four years spent in her studio as “being in a cave”, a mysterious space cut off from contact with the outside world, and bringing to mind the story of Calypso and Odysseus in Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey”.
Katayama has been groping in the darkness of this cave, creating secret relationships with the objects within. “Just One of Those Things” (2021), created in conjunction with the resumption of the High Heel Project she began in 2011, offers more choices as a response to social norms and the “correct body”. It is an appeal to us to realize that there is no personal freedom that should be willingly forfeited. Then, in “Leave-taking” (2021) and “Possession” (2022), the question of “letting go of/owning” the labels attached to others and ourselves. Katayama, by questioning the relationship between her own body, which she has used to create her ideal, and the objects she creates, can engage in a dialogue with her inner self.
In her new work, “Study for Caryatid” (2023), Katayama attempts to situate the object/self-relationship that was established in “Leave-taking” and “Possession” into a more social context. The “caryatid” of this work's title refers to the standing female figures sometimes found in place of columns to support beams in ancient Greek temple architecture. The “caryatid” can appear to stand firm between heaven and earth, or to be chained to both. In "Study for Caryatid", there may be invisible chains tying down Katayama's body, yet it evokes not the heaviness of these chains, but the lightness of being free while bound by them.
Against the backdrop of the tale of Calypso and Odysseus, Katayama looks back on the secret relationships she created in the four years of her cave-like period of creation.
Schedule | Jun 6 (Tue) 2023-Jun 24 (Sat) 2023 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.galleryether.com/en/exhibitions/cavern | ||||
| Venue | Gallery Ether https://www.galleryether.com/en | ||||
| Location | 1F-B1F Sanoushokai Nishiazabu Bldg., 3-24-19 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0031 | ||||
| Access | 7 minute walk from exit 1c at Roppongi Station on the Hibiya or Toei Oedo line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6271-5022 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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