Aiwa To Zen, 2003

During my first visit to Japan in 2002, I wrote down every Japanese word that I had known before visiting Japan. The thin vocabulary of about 150 words that I managed to scrape together had to do almost exclusively with an exotic and imaginary Japan, or a consumable Japan... with eating Japanese food, Japan at war, Japanese pop culture, the Japanese art and fashion worlds, and, overwhelmingly, with dozens of Japanese brand names. I asked five Japanese-speakers to improvise a series of scenes from daily life, using only my primitive foreigner's Japanese:

AIWA / AKIRA KUROSAWA / ANIME / ARIGATO / ASAHI / ATARI / BANANA YOSHIMOTO / BONSAI / BUBBLE ECONOMY / BUNRAKU / COMME DES GARÇONS / DAIHATSU / DAIKON / DOJO / DOMO / EDAMAME / EDO / FUJI / FUKUOKA / FUTON / GAIJIN / GEISHA / GODZILLA / HAIKU / HANAE MORI / HARA KIRI / HELLO KITTY / HIDEKI / HIROHITO / HIROSHIGE / HIROSHIMA / HIROSHI SUGIMOTO / HITACHI / HOKUSAI / HONDA / IKEBANA / ISAMU NOGUCHI / ISOZAKI ARATA / ISSEY MIYAKE / ISUZU / KABUKI / KAMIKAZE / KANAZAWA / KANEBO / KARAOKE / KARATE / KASUGAI / KAWASAKI / KAZUO ISHIGURO / KIMONO / KIRIN / KODAMA / KONICHIWA / KONIKA / KOYANAGI / KYOTO / LOVE HOTEL / MANGA / MARIKO MORI / MAZDA / MEIJI / MIKADO / MISO / MITSUBISHI / MOSHI MOSH / MUJI / MY MELODY / NAGASAKI / NARITA / NETSUKE / NIKON / NINJA / NIPPON / NISSAN / NOBU / NOBUYOSHI ARAKI / ORIGAMI / OSAKA / OSHINKO / OTAKU / PACHINKO / PANASONIC / PIKACHU / POKEMON / RAMEN / REI KAWAKUBO / SAKE / SAKURA / SALARYMAN / SAMURAI / SANRIO / SANYO / SAPPORO / SARIN GAS / SASHIMI / SAYONARA / SEGA / SEIKO / SHABU SHABU / SHINKANSEN / SHISHEIDO / SHOGUN / SOBA / SONY / SUMO / SUNTORY / SUSHI / SUZUKI / TADAO ANDO / TAKA ISHII / TAKASHI MURAKAMI / TAMAGO / TARO NASU / TATAMI / TEMPURA / TEPPANYAKI / TERIYAKI / TOFU / TOKYO / TOMIO KOYAMA / TONKATSU / TOSHIBA/ TOYOTA / TSUNAMI / UDON / UKIYO-E / UNAGI / WASABI / WATARI-UM / YAKITORI / YAKUZA / YAMAHA / YASUMASA MORIMURA / YAYOI KUSAMA / YEN / YOHJI YAMAMOTO / YOKOHAMA / YOKO ONO / YOSHITOMO NARA / YUKIO MISHIMA / YUKO HASEGAWA / ZEN

Candice Breitz, Aiwa To Zen, 2003, Video, color, sound, 11:30 minutes, edition of 5 + 1 AP

Candice Breitz, Aiwa To Zen, 2003, Ed. 5 + 1 AP (film still)

Candice Breitz, Aiwa To Zen, 2003, Ed. 5 + 1 AP (Making Of)

Credits

Director + Editor: Candice Breitz / Producer: Shugo Satani, ShugoArts, Tokyo / Casting: Candice Breitz + Shugo Satani / Camera: Candice Breitz / Sound + Lighting: Shigeo Muto + Shinji Terakawa / Production Assistants: Ayako Kenmotsu, Makiko Yamamoto, Yoko Yamamoto / Post Production: Alexander Fahl / Cast: Wise Old Man: Keiji Nakamura / Bunny Chan: Makiko Yamamoto / Salary Man: Satoshi Shiraki / Kimono Lady: Mika Tsuboi / Super Salary Man: Tetsuzo Nagashima

INDEX:

Orientalism

Consumerism

Pop Culture

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Candice Breitz

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Biography

Candice Breitz, born in 1972 in Johannesburg, is best known for her moving image installations. Throughout her career, she has explored the dynamics by means of which an individual becomes him or herself in relation to a larger community, be that community the immediate community that one encounters in family, or the real and imagined communities that are shaped not only by questions of national belonging, race, gender and religion, but also by the increasingly undeniable influence of mainstream media such as television, cinema and popular culture. Most recently, Breitz’s work has focused on the conditions under which empathy is produced, reflecting on a media-saturated global culture in which strong identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures runs parallel to widespread indifference to the plight of those facing real world adversities. Candice Breitz is based in Berlin and, since 2007, holds a professorship for fine arts at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) and in the same year was awarded with the Prix International d´Art Contemporain I Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. Her work has been featured in international group shows in institutions such as Haus der Kunst, München (2023), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2022), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2021), the Jewish Museum, New York City (2020), the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2016), De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam (2001). Solo exhibitions of Breitz’s work have been shown at Fotografiska, Berlin (2023), Tate Liverpool (2022), Museum Folkwang, Essen (2022), Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2016), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2010), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009) , Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2005) among others. Next to various group exhibitions Breitz has participated in biennales in Johannesburg (1997), São Paulo (1998), Istanbul (1999), Taipei (2000), Kwangju (2000), Tirana (2001), Venice (2005), New Orleans (2008), Göteborg (2003 + 2009), Singapore (2011) and Dakar (2014). She was invited to the South African Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

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