Artist talkThursday 3 October 2019
6:00pm – 7:00pm
Artist Talk: Naoya Inose in conversation with Dr Lena Fritsch
Drinks reception: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
The artist Naoya Inose discussed his work and exhibition The Post-Anthropocene with Dr Lena Fritsch, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford).
The new geological era the Anthropocene, which means “the age of humanity”, defines the epoch we live in, and it is a time of significant human impact on Earth’s geology, ecosystem and climate. What kind of influence will humanity bring to this new geological age? Is the age of humanity in fact the history of time itself?
The main work in this exhibition, Ave Maria, depicts a Ferris wheel quietly enshrined in a huge cave. This Ferris wheel left by humans is a metaphor of humanity itself and it slowly rotates, climbing up and plunging down from top to bottom. Indeed, the Ferris wheel embodies the time constraints by which humanity is bound; it just constantly repeats its circular movement.
If life and death are the motif of the Ferris wheel, the Ferris wheel in the work Ave Maria has stopped, and time restrictions no longer exist. It has become an onlooker that quietly stares out of the cave. It is as if it is expecting slowly to become part of nature without being exposed to the sunshine.
A video of the seminar can be found here:
About the contributors
Naoya Inose
Naoya Inose (b.1988) graduated in 2012 from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he specialized in Oil Painting, and received his MA (Fine Art) at UAL Chelsea College of Art And Design in 2017. Inose was a participant in the 21st DOMANI, and his works have been exhibited in museums including the National Art Center Tokyo and Takamatsu City Museum of Art. His works are included in the Takahashi Collection and at the Benetton Foundation. Inose’s work explores the tension between the natural world and its grasping appropriation by human influence. Inose uses oil painting techniques to create both meticulously realistic landscapes and abstract oil paintings on canvas. His works of art make us question our relationship with and understanding of nature. Inose also creates a debate on the role of original masterpieces and how this has changed in the contemporary postmodern world.
Listing Image: Himawari, 2019, Oil, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 65 cm, © Naoya Inose
Dr Lena Fritsch
Dr Lena Fritsch is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford), working on exhibitions, displays and acquisitions of international art. One of her main research areas is Japanese art and photography of the 20th and 21st centuries. Before joining the Ashmolean, she worked as Assistant Curator at Tate Modern, co-curating exhibitions such as Giacometti (2017) and Agnes Martin (2015). In 2018 Fritsch published one of the first overviews on Japanese photography in English: Ravens & Red Lipstick: Japanese Photography since 1945 (English version with Thames & Hudson and Japanese version with Seigensha). Other monographs include A.R. Penck: I Think in Pictures (2019), an English-language version of Moriyama Daido’s Tales of Tono (2012), The Body as a Screen: Japanese Art Photography of the 1990s (2011), and Yasumasa Morimura’s Self-Portrait as Actress (2008). Fritsch holds a PhD in Art History from Bonn University, Germany, and also studied at Keio University, Tokyo.