In Work Are Popstars, the Nationwide Artwork Heart, Tokyo, is staging the primary solo survey exhibition of the queer Japanese American artist Ei Arakawa-Nash. His efficiency works will occupy one among NACT’s cavernous galleries throughout 9 sections, every addressing portray’s relationship to a distinct theme, akin to parks, parenting, passports and prancing. Arakawa-Nash will carry out weekly in what can also be the museum’s first solo exhibition by a efficiency artist.
Along with inviting participation from the general public, a lot of Arakawa-Nash’s work provides a platform to different artists. Right here, he’ll characteristic, for instance, a portray by his fellow Japanese American artist Miyoko Ito, whose work has by no means beforehand been proven in Japan. He may also dedicate one part of the present to representing the native LGBTQIA+ group.
Whereas artwork historic and pop cultural references are staples of his work, Arakawa-Nash explains, “Typically my life turns into part of my efficiency topic.” He is because of develop into a dad or mum to twins after the shut of the exhibition, which he titled after the Japanese singer Yumi Matsutoya’s 2013 observe Infants are popstars; a few of his items tackle the woes of balancing parenting with work.
Suspicious of the early 2000s pattern of highlighting efficiency within the West, but additionally envious of portray’s exalted standing within the artwork world, Arakawa-Nash linked his performances to the discourse of portray. His citations, nevertheless, are nuanced, and never all the time merely adoring. The exhibition will characteristic LED variations of work by the Minimalist painters Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin, whose delicately produced works reproduce poorly even in pictures. They’re additionally queer artists who preceded the watershed second of the Stonewall riots in 1969—a reality vital to Arakawa-Nash and infrequently ignored by artwork establishments.
Arakawa-Nash’s personal relationship to native artwork establishments is not any easier. He explains that he’s “utilizing [all the] social capital I’ve to check the bounds of the Japanese nationwide museum”. Smuggling dwell efficiency, LGBTQIA+ activism and the anxieties of an artist awaiting parenthood into one among Japan’s main establishments, the present guarantees to be a riot.
• Ei Arakawa-Nash: Work Are Popstars, Nationwide Artwork Heart, Tokyo, 30 October-16 December
