Contemporary Art Exhibition From Japan: WINTER GARDEN – In Hanoi And Ho Chi Minh City

From Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam

In celebration of the Japan – Vietnam Friendship Year 2013, the Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam and Consulate-General of Japan in Ho Chi Minh City, in cooperation with the Embassy of Japan in Vietnam, proudly present the cutting-edge contemporary art exhibition “Winter Garden” from Saturday 8 June to Sunday 21 July 2013 in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Curated by art critic Midori Matsui, the exhibition “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” features 35 works – drawings, paintings, and video works – by 14 young Japanese artists active from the latter half of the 1990s throughout the first decade of the 21st century.

The artists presenting their distinctive views of the world through the combination of fragments and imbuing the obsolete or the commonplace with new functions or meanings, share the similar style of expression, which Ms. Matsui calls “Micropop.”

It is noteworthy that this exhibition includes three video works by Koki Tanaka, who has been selected as the representative artist for the Japan pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia in Italy (The biennale runs from 1 June to 28 November 2013).

How do Japan’s artists, living in an increasingly globalized world and in a time when shared values are hard to establish, see our contemporary world? We hope that visitors to “Winter Garden” will nurture the understanding of empathy with the insights and perspectives of the artists through the exhibited works.

Curated by: Midori Matsui
Introduced artists in the exhibition:
Ryoko Aoki / Masaya Chiba / Chim ↑ Pom / Masanori Handa / Taro Izumi / Makiko Kudo / Mahomi Kunikata / Tam Ochiai / Hiroe Saeki / Hiroshi Sugito / Aya Takano / Koki Tanaka / Keisuke Yamamoto / Lyota Yagi