Kaikai Kiki Gallery

The resurrection of the world, portrayed in mythic scale

From Friday, July 22, Kaikai Kiki Gallery will present REBIRTH OF THE WORLD, a solo exhibition by Chiho Aoshima. The show is a follow up to a previous exhibition held under the same name at the Seattle Art Museum in 2015, as well as Kaikai Kiki’s Kyoto Pop Up Gallery earlier this year.

Born in Tokyo in 1974, Chiho Aoshima has received attention ever since her debut for her chromogenic and other printed works showcasing her astonishing command of Adobe Illustrator.

Despite her relative acclaim, exhibitions of Aoshima’s work have mostly taken place outside Japan so far, including showcases at the Museum of Contemporary Art Lyon and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. For her first solo-exhibition in Japan, audiences were forced to wait until REBIRTH OF THE WORLD came to Kyoto this past March. In the time between her debut and this long awaited presentation, Aoshima has expanded her range of expression to include hand-painted drawings, sculptures, and moving images. This exhibition will feature her recent digital animations, as well as a new interactive animation that is being created specifically for this occasion. We also note that while thematically this is a touring exhibition, the lineup presented at our Tokyo space will be distinct from the previous shows in Seattle and Kyoto.

This new edition of REBIRTH OF THE WORLD is essentially composed of three main parts. In the first part, “Dialog with the Spiritual,” Aoshima’s universe is expressed temporally and spatially via the animated video installation City Glow. This will be the first time for this piece to be displayed at Kaikai Kiki Gallery, after having previously been featured in the 2011 reopening of America’s largest video and media museum, the Museum of the Moving Image. The exhibition then continues with Takaamanohara, a video installation which was praised by art critic Noi Sawaragi as “having reached a level of perfection beyond any of the artist’s past work.” Aoshima explains that “the piece was influenced by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, as well as the reconstruction which took place in its aftermath”. Following natural disasters such as a tsunami and volcanic eruption, the viewer witnesses the return of life and exuberant growth. The piece is expressed on an almost mythical scale and can be experienced via projection on a wall greater than 10 meters wide and 2.5 meters high.

Lastly, the interactive work to be featured in the exhibition is, like the other two pieces, once again being created in collaboration with New Zealand video artist Bruce Ferguson. In this work, the strange and fascinating characters created by Aoshima will communicate directly with the audience, summoning a fantastical environment within the walls of Kaikai Kiki Gallery.

Photos from the production of Takaamanohara showing the motion capture process.