Ei Arakawa “Performance People Rehab”

Ei Arakawa “Performance People Rehab”

Artists Space

This event has ended.

For his first North American institutional solo exhibition, Ei Arakawa locates two specific nodes of exploration, the erection throughout New York City of ad-hoc outdoor dining corrals as a means of maintaining sociability through the pandemic (interlaced here with a circulatory system of ocean water transported from his hometown of Fukushima, Japan), and the mediated world of professional tennis as particularly evident in the complex public image of its most exciting star Naomi Osaka.

A person in a red shirt, white cap, and multicolored pants smiles and poses with a tennis racquet, standing atop a large piece of paper with colorful drawings on it. In the background are people sitting on the ground and printed images of trees.

Japanese-born American artist Ei Arakawa’s exhibitions and performances are often created through fervent collaborations with artists (and at times their artworks), art historians, and with audience members themselves. His activities undertake the lo-fi mimicry, duplication, and embodiment of cultural forms—be they architectural structures, art historical legacies, or organizational systems—to reanimate their potentialities anew. Since the early 2000s, Arakawa has been at the forefront of renewing the visibility and advancement of performance art internationally, and has mined both its vintage forms (such as Japanese Gutai, New York’s Fluxus, Happenings, and Judson Dance Theater, and Viennese Actionism) as well as numerous contemporary manifestations of movement, entertainment, and togetherness. His work, initially appearing spontaneous or improvised, is underpinned by a deep commitment to collaboration as well as addressing the specific contexts of the people for which it is created.

On the evening of Sunday October 10th, the artist will celebrate the publication of his first monograph, Performance People (co-published with Kunstverein Düsseldorf), with a book release/water release and karaoke event as a form of social rehabilitation. On Saturday October 16th, Arakawa will stage a new afternoon performance exploring the realm of Naomi Osaka in Cortlandt Alley.

[Image: Ei Arakawa, Mega Please Draw Freely, 2021 (The artist wears Uniqlo Roger Federer) (A person in a red shirt, white cap, and multicolored pants smiles and poses with a tennis racquet, standing atop a large piece of paper with colorful drawings on it. In the background are people sitting on the ground and printed images of trees.)]

Media

• Installation
• Performance Art

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