30 September 2020 Four of Yoshinori Niwa's single channel video works will be screened over the course of the fall for the Mori Art Museum's series MAM Screen. This is the sixth edition of the series at the Museum.
Yoshinori Niwa, Looking For Vladimir Lenin At Moscow Apartments, installation view, 2012
The works to be screened are from Niwa's 'Communism' series, including Tossing Socialists in the Air in Romania (2010), Celebrating Karl Marx's Birthday with the Japanese Communist Party (2013), Proposing Holding up Karl Marx to the Japanese Communist Party (2013) and Looking for Vladimir Lenin at Moscow Apartments (2012).
Visit the Mori Art Museum's website more information on Yoshinori Niwa's works and the programme of screenings.
Niwa Yoshinori has a sharp perspective, always penetrating simultaneously bothwhat seems most familiar and what seems remote. This acuity lies in how its examination of wealth and freedom - the things that we unquestioningly extol and pursue on a daily basis - does not overlook where they came from or what they bring us. The actions that Niwa makes in his work initially appear humorous or even nonsensical, but they vividly reveal past social systems and how these have changed within people’s lives. Today, we face the threat of the proliferation of COVID-19. What impact will it have on our future lives or on political and social structures? What is being done and what is being overlooked? Reading Niwa’s statement, I once again felt a sense of the growing necessity for perspectives that observe these.
Being a somewhat long work, people may not have been able to watch it all when it was screened at the Mori Art Museum. I hope that you could take advantage of this opportunity to enjoy viewing it online at your leisure.
- Kumakura Haruko (Assistant Curator, Mori Art Museum)
