2005

0:00 1- 29 Jan.
Kin Taii + TAO Project
N 35.41.11 E 139.45.19 YinYang
visual installation


flyer design: ben graphique

 

[L] Gallery ef [R] AKI-EX/EX LOUNGE (co-hosting venue)


19:30 24, 26 Feb.
Kakushin Tomoyoshi
hanaichikan

SATSUMA Lute cocnert & lecture about Japanese traditional performing art

 


19:00 Thu. 10 Mar.
IKKO SUZUKI
: dance performance
Kirara Kawachi
: sound
3.10

In the early morning of March 10th, 1945, eastern Tokyo was heavily bombed by the US air force. More than 100,000 people were killed that morning, most of victims were elders, women, and children.

Not many buildings survived the bombs- one of the very few exceptions is this old storage. Now it's called gallery ef- it stands here in Asakusa since then.

For 60 years, Japan is fortunate to have nothing to fall on us from the sky- except rains- But in the world, there are civilians suffering with the fall of bombs everyday. Tokyo Bombing tells us the story- story we should share with the world. A dancer Suzuki Ikko will collaborate with the voices of survivors in the gallery ef on March 10th. It would be a night to share the moment that happened 60 years ago.

photo: Daito Noken


Survivors' voices are being heard in the gallery. Audiences are welcomed to stand or sit anywhere they like. From the ceiling, you could see hanged figures being piled, and you lose the sense of gravity. Ikko dances around of audiences. Survivors, victims, fire, and bombs... his dance would made us feel what we had 60 years ago.


 

1-17 Apr.
Heimo Wallner/ Manfred Engelmayr, FUGU and the Cosmic Mumu (FCM)
"reciprocity"
drawing / music / animation / performance

supported by Austrian Embassy/ Cultural Forum, SKE austro mechana, M.E.L. Kunsthandel

  Wallpaper
I draw and fill the walls of rooms with drawings.
My images become wallpaper – it works best when my brain is on autopilot.
Inner processes as well as my environment, associations, trains of thought, emotions… all that delivers material for my imagery. And not to forget the images themselves which start to interact and disturb each other until expression and information become structure and texture – wallpaper.


"reciprocity"

East - West
Japan - Austria
Gallery - Bar
Music - Fine Art
Us - our friends and guests
Heimo - Manfred

Each of us within his own schizophrenias

 

Heimo Wallner
drawings, animations
Fugu and the Cosmic Mumu
sound
Manfred Engelmayr: guitar. vocals
Heimo Wallner: trumpet, vocals


OPENING EVENT
31st of March: 19 00
OPENING
admission free
FCM concert and screening of “Menudo” and “Mao Tse Tung” (animation films)

special guest: Haco (musician)
outfits: Chika Sai (SQUNABICONA)


SPECIAL EVENT
Sun. 10th of April: 19 00
BY US AT HOME
admission 700Yen (with FCM original! cocktail)
* Slide show with musique concrete, improvisations,
* Disco: music from the opposite part of the world.
YES! Austrian (dance) music!!!

special guest: Shinji Komiya (artist)
outfits: Edwina Hörl


SPECIAL EVENT
Sun. 17th of April: 19 00
SIGHT SEEING (HEARING)
admission 700Yen (with FCM original! cocktail)
* pinhole camera photos of Tokyo slide show with improvisations
* EKOARAK: on the video we'll see our friends from Tokyo singing our songs accompanied with live music

special guest: Taku Sugimoto (musician)
outfits: Toshihiko Sakurai (SQUNABICONA)

 


Heimo Wallner
20. 9. 1961 born in Tamsweg (Salzburg)
1981 - 88 Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
since 1988 Studio in Schrattenberg, St. Lorenzen bei Scheifling (Styria)
since 1990 annual intermedial Symposia in Schrattenberg
since 1998 „Hotel PUPIK“, organisation of the artists in residence in SchrattenbergExhibitions and projects (selection) since 1995

Dec2004 Hotcakes Gallery

Manfred Engelmayr
23.08.1972 in wels, austriamusician and designer, lives in vienna, austria.composer, singer, guitarplayer, in bulbul, fugu and the cosmic mumu, good enough for you.founder (with karl kilian) of the electro-trash-label rasputin records hurenschädlreleases on mego, trost, rock is hell, interstellarrecords, rasprechs.

Fugu and the Cosmic Mumu (FCM)
Manfred Engelmayr, guitar, voice
Heimo Wallner, trumpet, voice

Pop music on thin ice
Brittle small songs of love, sadness and failure contrast with blocks of free improvisation.
For the show in Gallery ef a vinyl single (edition of 50) will be produced.

 

exhibition
photo: Shinji Komiya

FCM opening live
31 March

outfit: Chika Sai (SQUNABICONA)

FCM live performance
"BY US AT HOME"
10 April

outfit: Edwina Hörl

special guest: Shinji Komiya

 


 

19:30 21, 23 Apr.
Kakushin Tomoyoshi
hanaichikan

SATSUMA Lute cocnert & lecture
featuring ATSUMORI TAIRA (1169-1184)

 


 

27 Apr. - 8 May
Gallery éf 8th anniversary presentation
new logo, new image, new menu

vote on new éf logo

What do you wanna see?
What happened to this photograph by Gerhard Klocker

click here for the detail

new menu at cafe
fine homemade meal with Chinese antique dishes

 


 

14 May/ 5 Jun.
Kenji Kobayashi
lecture
Where Thought Meets Form
vol.1 curiosity; long before the birth of works

 


 

10 Jun. -18 Jul.
Alexandre Imai
paintings

 


 

19:30 21, 23 Jul.
Kakushin Tomoyoshi
hanaichikan

SATSUMA Lute cocnert & lecture
featuring Nichiren Shonin (1222-1282)

 


 

5-28 Aug .
Toru Ukai
photograph
"From the Terminal: Guangzhou Train Station, 1997"

supported by: FUJIFILM IMAGING CO.,LTD.

During the 1990sin China,peasants from the countryside poured into big cities where economic growth inspired great exuberance.Exemplary of this phenomenon was Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province. Around that time, the peasants, on the scale of tens of thousands of people, lived in the open air with only the barest necessities, in front of the Guangzhou Train Station.

While Toru Ukai, wandered in front of the station every night and concentrated on taking photographs of the people in heat, sweat and exhaust fumes, he kept feeling a strange sense of loss, feeling hollow, by having a camera. In spite of his consciousness, the photographs were as beautiful as a nightmare.

In 1998, this photography series won Encouragement Prize at the 7th New Cosmos of Photography Exhibition. Around sixty works will be exhibited including unpublished works. This is the first sole exhibition of Toru Ukai, a photographer based in Tokyo and Shanghai.

From the Terminal: Guangzhou Train Station, 1997
text by Toru Ukai July 2005

This is one kind of record. The photographs in this exhibition are a record of the "mangliu" scenery in recent Chinese history.
The Chinese expression "mangliu" refers to the phenomenon where peasants from the countryside poured into big cities like an avalanche. This phenomenon was seen in costal areas where economic growth during the 1990s inspired great exuberance. Exemplary of this phenomenon was Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province.
The train bound for the city signified a longing for the future, but once the train arrived at the city, the stark reality struck them. Around that time, the "mangliu" peasants, on the scale of tens of thousands of people, lived in front of the Guangzhou Train Station.
They left their hometown without any chance of success, as the expression "mangliu", which literally means "unplanned flow", suggests. All they could do was just to stand rooted to the spot. They had no idea where to go. In spite of that, they had to live on. It was the only thing that was certain. They started to live in the open air with only the barest necessities.

It is said that during the life of a Chinese peasant, they might never move outside a ten-kilometer radius. For these people, the city of Guangzhou, which was several thousand kilometers from their hometown, might as well be a foreign country.
In the meantime, I stayed there and watched them as a stranger like these people. The difference between them and myself was ridiculous and callously real: I had money and they had none. I was a representative of a company and stayed at a comfortable five-star hotel. And they lived on the road of the southern country in heat, sweat and exhaust fumes. However, that kind of difference might be patently too obvious to mean anything.

Around that time, I felt that the essential difference that divided them and me was a much simpler thing. Only I had a camera. And the sense I most strongly felt while taking photographs in the middle of these people was embarrassment. I was so ashamed to have a camera. Too ashamed. I kept taking photographs battling this sense of humiliation.
On the other hand, these people on the other side of the viewfinder were living a much more complicated and existential life. How will they live through tomorrow? All their concentration and thoughts must revolve around this question of survival. I thought this solemn obsession about survival made these people a model of "pure existence."
While I concentrated on taking photographs and forgot about myself every night, I kept feeling a strange sense of loss, feeling hollow, by having a camera. Taking photographs is actually a kind of mental crisis.

Taking photographs, checking the developed film and taking photographs. In this simple repetition, I still noticed one unexpected thing. Those photographs were beautiful.
I had never intended to take beautiful photographs, because I had never thought that these people in grime and sweat were beautiful. In spite of such a recognition, those photographs were beautiful. Those photographs were as beautiful as a dream.
Our world is full to the brim with ugliness, despite this people champion beauty, but such bandying about only produces more ugliness. No matter how people intend to create beauty, we only trace the boundary of our own aesthetics.
I think that natural beauty always exists on the other side, on the other side of the viewfinder. Our eyes are too cowardly and despite our vision we desire not to see. On the contrary, photograph sees everything. That is why photograph always goes beyond me.

Eight years ago in front of the Guangzhou train station, my photography touched the "pure existence" of these people going beyond my narrow consciousness. And pure human existence always includes beauty that, despite our sensibility, in our daily life we pass over by habit. This beauty is called dignity.


Toru Ukai / Photographer

Engaging in photography and writing based in Tokyo and Shanghai.
2002.4 ~ present
Serialization of photo and text about China on the magazine, NHK TV Chinese Conversation Text.
2000
Started his activity as a freelance photographer.
Participated a photo exhibition "LOVE & POWER Borderless World".
This exhibition was held at SPIRAL, in Omotesando, Tokyo and traveled to Hiroshima and Sendai.
1998
Won Encouragement Prize at the 7th New Cosmos of Photography Exhibition.
1994~1997
Stationed in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, China, as a representative of the publisher.
1985
Started to work at a publisher. Belonged to the branches of marketing, product development and sales.
Graduated from Japanese Literature Major, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo.

English translation: Takeshi Yamaguchi (Gallery ef), Aaron Kerner


 

22 Sep. - 16 Oct.
Susan Pietzsch
Kostbarkeiten - kakegae no nai mono

contemporary jewerly
German Year in Japan

supportend by: ifa, Ministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Landkreis Bad Dobern, Schmuck2, THE NOMURA CULTURAL FOUNDATION


flyer design: Hiroki Masunari


photo: Qvest

In the exhibition of the German artist Susan Pietzsch there is a reference to its specific spatial circumstances. The gallery space is situated in a former warehouse (called "KURA" in Japanese). This space was traditionally used for the storage of valuable objects and treasures. In this exhibition, an installation of sugar objects and jewellery will be referring to this background.

Susan Pietzsch's intervention on the theme of sugar conveys a complex reflection on the subject of sugar objects, their meaning and sometimes bizarre incarnations in various cultures. Sugar is one of the first industrially produced foodstuffs and, at least since the 19th century, a pleasure drug for the masses. Though it is true that pure sugar today is increasingly less consumed in private households, industrially produced, sugar containing foods, like soft-drinks, cakes, ice cream, jam and an almost inexhaustible variety of ever new sweets, make it through surreptitiously and, in a similar way, sugar substitutes are still, as always, an important consumer article. Besides, sugar objects still have their traditional religious usages, be it at the All Souls' festivities in Mexico with its death skulls made out of sugar icing; the cult of the dead in Japan, with its grave offerings made from sugar; or in the realm of European traditions, at the Three Kings' festival.
Instead of imitating the often-loud colors of the originals, the works of the artist appear in the pure white monochrome of the material they are made from: refined sugar or sugar substitute. Striped bare of the colors, it develops a remarkably alienating effect, which casts a different light on the form, emphasizing it and sometimes granting it an unexpected aesthetic. Moreover, this strategy to reduce the colorful variety of the sugar items to their main ingredient, distinctly emphasizes the strange modes of diversification the sugar industry deploys to market their monotonous, dull comfort foods, by use of varying colors, shapes, packaging and "extras" with predominantly dubious benefits.
Susan Pietzsch's work distinguishes itself by being simultaneously conventional, wearable jewellery , and also something that functions as an autonomous object or installation, which then, presented independent of the body, is not conveyed as adornment but as an artistic statement.
In her artistic work, another aspect brings in an additional alienating effect: the dimension. Installations with huge Smarties made from Isomalt (a sugar substitute) that seem like oversized bars of soap; or montages of countless white, plastic-trash give-aways from ice-cream packages, cast from a sugar substitute, which translate the sweet raw material into an aesthetic, which goes from the seductively magical to the astonishingly irritating. While the monstrous Smarties appear truly inedible, hard to digest, the sphere made from partly melted plastic-trash-figures displays the magic of molded frozen (sugar-) water and refers to the luxurious ice sculptures of festive banquets. All this doesn't happen in a didactic-ponderous way but inspirations are imparted in a refreshing, wide-awake, and somewhat laconic manner, and are designed to open up unusual visual perspectives on sweets.
A catalog will appear parallel to the exhibition. It consists of a preface that introduces the theme of the exhibition as well as containing additional publications about contemporary jewellery in Germany. For this catalog, the artists Susan Pietzsch and Valentina Seidel will collaborate on photographic work in Tokyo. The catalog will be part of the previously published series of catalogs of (Schmuck)2 e.V..

display (Gallery éf)

display (Studio J)

 

susan pietzsch (1969)

susan pietzsch started to exhibit her work in 1997, featuring wearable jewellery pieces. in parallel with this she started working with autonomous objects, independent from the body, presented as an installation where the adorning aspect steps back in favour of an artistic statement.

Susan pietzsch founded schmuck2 in 1997 and since 2001 has installed a continuous international exhibition programme. she has worked in different collaborations, as schmuck2, with a focus on unusual, diverse takes on the themes of “jewellery”, combining people from different cultural backgrounds such as artists, designers and art-theorists. her projects shape a multi-faced image for contemporary styles of jewellery, using unconventional concepts that move between fine and applied arts.pitzsch completed her study at the academy of design and applied arts in heiligendamm/ wismar.

www.susanpietzsch.com
www.schmuck2.de

 


 

21 - 23 Oct.
AFS experiment
theater performance + raeding
Blind Spot

 


19:30 27, 29 Oct.
Kakushin Tomoyoshi
hanaichikan

SATSUMA Lute cocnert & lecture
featuring Nobunaga Oda (1534-1582)


 

2 - 27 Nov.
Kin Taii + Project TAO
visual/music installation

N 35.42.24, E 139.48.00
YinYang
Room of Water

Visual artist Kin Taii and Project TAO present continuous visual installations in four different venues that are located alongside Dragon Vein of Japan. The idea is based on Taoism, concerning yin and yang of elements and geomancy (feng shui) that represent balance and relation of this universe.
In ancient Japan, spiritual places like shrines and temples were located and designed regarding to those Chinese geomancy, centering around Imperial Palace. We can hardly feel such spiritual relation in present Tokyo city. Project TAO attempts to highlight the energy vein which still exists in our life and mind.
This project started at Gallery ef in 2003, as a visual/music installation titled "Phasis of Yin Yang". They created a strained tea room having a visual Kakejiku (Japanese scroll picture) showing living and dying daffodils and held "yin yang tea ceremony" which served two different teas grown in same rocky mountain; one grows mostly in the sunlight and the other mostly in the shadow.
In January 2005, second gallery AKI-EX/ EX-LOUNGE in Minami Aoyama participated as a co-hosting venue. When they connected Gallery ef and AKI-EX with a straight line on a map, the midpoint happened to be middle of the Imperial Palace. There was another coincident: AKI-EX has been enshrining a dragon in their garden, and Gallery ef is located in Asakusa centering around a great temple whose symbol is a golden dragon. Since then the dragon has become a symbolic image of the project. Kin Taii takes those curious relations not as a coincidence but as what Taoism indicates: every existence has a reason to be there.
Two exhibitions were held at the same time, as showing the phasis of yin and yang. Each visual, music, events, food and drink were designed as to be completed when audience visits two venues. Yin and yang don't exist alone.

This year the third venue Kaze Gallery, which is located in Ginza near Imperial Palace, is participating. The map of Project TAO's relation happened to parallel the Dragon Vein, and it is heading to Mt. Fuji which is energy source of Japan; both geographically and spiritually.

Each exhibition is having different and growing images; such as "Room of Water" (Gallery ef), "Room of Light" (Kaze Gallery) and "Room of Sky" (AKI-EX). In February 2006 a visual and misc event of Kin Taii is scheduled to be held as "Feast of Earth", at the foot of Mt. Fuji.
A mental journey that Dragon guides you begins, as crossing and connecting areas, years and people.

Phasis of yin yang has been latent in our invisible consciousness, however we are aware or not. It integrates all images of present, future and past, like a light or harmony of spirit.
--- Kin Taii

 

NN 35.40.18, E 139.46.11 - Room of Light
Kaze Gallery/ Ginza

Thu. 1 - Wed. 21 Dec.
13:00 - 19:00
closed on Sundays, Holidays

 

 

 

N 35.39.33, E 139.43.00 - Room of Sky
AKI-EX/ EX-LOUNGE/ Minami Aoyama

Wed. 28 Dec. 2005 – Sat. 28 Jan. 2006
13:00-18:00
closed on Sundays, Holidays, 31 Dec - 3 Jan

 

 

 

N 35.21.34, E 138.44.01 - Feast of Earth
Gallery MARUHEI/ Mishima, Shizuoka

Wed. 8 - Sat. 19 Mar. 2006
11:00-19:00
closed on Tuesdays

 

visual live performance
19:00 Fri. 11 Nov. at bar ef

 

KIN TAII
As a contemporary artist, Kin Taii is eager to express his specific vision in visual images and music, synthetically taking advantage of media with the most advanced technology available. He utilizes his specific methods as well as his versatile imagination as ways of expression. He defines the universe as multiple factors of possible expression, insisting that everything in nature originates life and the roots of this origins connect the universe. The above ideas coincide with the origin of his soul. He places great importance on the sense of response to nature and harmony between the ins and outs of spirits. Kin Taii is an outstanding artist who reconfirms himself by immersion into nature and also draws inspiration from the culture of the city where has lived for many years.

 

Kin Taii
WORK with Gallery éf

Floating and Hallucination ('98)
Millennium Garden ('99-'00)
Stream of The Wind, Feeling of The Wind ('02)
LiVE TATTOO SHOW ('02)
Phasis of Yin Yang ('03)
N 35.41.11 E 139.45.19 YinYang ('05)

 


 

music month
Forest under the Moonlight

vol.4

drawing: Hidetoshi Yamada

Gallery éf presents annual live event "Forest Under The Moonlight". Six groups, a wide variety of quality musicians participate this event, such as Jazz, Japanese traditional music, ethnic music.
All the concerts will be held in gallery space, which was built in 1868 as a clay warehouse and the number of audience is limited as 25 persons.
You can feel the acoustic harmony of clay, wood, sound and even breathing of musicians, in the specific air.

reservation necessary

 

14:00/ 18:00
Sun. 4 Dec.

TENKU
Gyouten + Percussion Hana
ethnic music
kalimba, Chinese fiddle, Didjeridu, percussion, etc.

guest
Shuji Okayama: Khoomei (overtone singing)

ticket: 2,800Yen
25 limited places


 

19:30
Thu. 8 Dec.

Jazz

Toshio Miki: tenor sax
+
Shin Kamimura: base

ticket: 2,500Yen
40 limited places

 


14:00
Sun. 11 Dec.

flutes
UN-RYU

ticket: 2,000Yen
25 limited places

 


19:30
Wed. 14 Dec.

SATSUMA Lute + lecture
Kakushin Tomoyoshi
featuring Chushingura (1702)

ticket: 2,500Yen
only music: 1,200Yen
25 limited places


 

19:30
Thu. 15 Dec.

esraj + sitar
Takashi Kougo + Motoyasu Tatsuno
"IMPRESSION !"

ticket: 2,500Yen
25 limited places

 


18:00
Sun. 18 Dec.

Japanese folksong
Shigeri Kitsu

ticket: 2,000Yen
25 limited places

 

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