Universal / Remote is an exhibition that examines various things and phenomena which have entered the spotlight, or come to our attention for the first time, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The exhibition is intended to reframe themes often explored in contemporary art thus far, such as global capitalism and digital society, from the two perspectives of worldwide scale (as expressed by the word “universal” as well as the prefix “pan-,” which appears in many words including “pandemic”) and non-face-to-face isolation (as in “remote” work, school and so forth).
Most of the works to be exhibited were produced before 2020 but in conveying comical aspects of the excesses of surveillance and high-tech networks, as well as the profound isolation of human beings, these works seem to grapple head-on with the current era and with the post-COVID world of the future.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Since the late 20th century, people, capital, and information came to move on a global scale. We entered a new phase in the 2010s along with the proliferation of smart devices and issues such as excessive tourism, shifting of industryʼs production costs and environmental impact to developing nations, the digital divide and so forth were only worsening as the 2020s dawned. And while the outbreak of a pandemic that recognizes no borders suddenly put the brakes on the movement of people, the limitless flow of capital and information showed no sign of stopping. In fact, it seems we are seeing the true visage of capital and information systems for the first time. The rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless: imbalances in our world are becoming more explicit all the time.
The exhibition title Universal / Remote references prevailing conditions in the 21st century as capital and data flow freely on a global scale. Conveying comical aspects of the excesses of surveillance and high-tech networks, as well as the profound isolation of human beings, works in this exhibition seem to grapple head-on with the current era and with the post-COVID world. The exhibition presents the works of 8 artists and a group of 3 artists that address the state of society in the 21st century as shaped by the conditions described above, focusing on two concepts, “Constant Growth at a Pan-Global Scale” and “The Remote Individual.”
EXHIBITING ARTISTS
Daisuke Ida
Xu Bing
Trevor Paglen
Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze / Hito Steyerl / Miloš Trakilović
Maiko Jinushi
Tina Enghoff
Jeamin Cha
Evan Roth
Natsuko Kiura
Daisuke Ida
Daisuke Ida, For Whom the Bell Tolls?, 2021
Video (loop)
© Daisuke Ida
Courtesy of the Artist
Born in Tottori, Japan in 1987. Lives and works in Tokyo. He earned an MFA in sculpture from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2015 and completed MAD Art Practice in 2016.
While repeatedly returning to the classics of sculpture, Ida uses a variety of media to question what sculpture is. Three video works, For Whom the Bell Tolls?, IKAROS and Fever are
presented as a trilogy depicting three phenomena – flying, ascending, and falling (or collapsing) – which Ida composed for this exhibition.
Tina Enghoff
Tina Enghoff, Possible Relatives / Man born 1954, deceased, found in home February 14 2003, 2004
Archival pigment print, 120×160×5cm
© Tina Enghoff
Courtesy of the Artist
Born in Denmark in 1957. Lives and works in Copenhagen. She studied photography at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York.
Enghoff focuses on societal issues such as structural violence within the welfare state. In Possible Relatives, a photographic series of the rooms of people who had died alone, she
questioned the loneliness in the city.
Evan Roth
Evan Roth, Since You Were Born, 2023
Custom wallpaper, dimensions variable
Installation View of the MOCA Jacksonville: Since You Were Born, 2019
© Evan Roth
Courtesy of the MOCA Jacksonville
Photo by Doug Eng
Born in Michigan, USA in 1978. Lives and works in Berlin. He holds a B.S. in architecture from the University of Maryland and an MFA in Design & Technology at Parsons.
Roth applies the notion of the hack into art making. The immersive installation Since You Were Born, which utilizes images stored in his computer’s cache, captures a new form of
self-portrait.
ABOUT The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT)
The National Art Center, Tokyo was founded in 2007 with the mission of contributing to the creation of a new culture that advances mutual understanding and inclusion through the power of art. Since then, the NACT--the fifth institution to be established under the Independent Administrative Institution National Museum of Art--has functioned as an art center without permanent collections that provides the public with a place where they can experience many different forms of artistic expression, make new discoveries, and share diverse values. In addition to hosting a broad spectrum of art shows in one of Japan's largest art exhibition spaces (14,000 m2), the NACT also collects, provides, and makes publicly accessible diverse art information/resources and runs various educational and public programs.