Screening Program

To Be Being Seen: Exploring Artistic Expression in Moving Image Works from the 1960s to Today in Japan

2025 6.6 Fri ─ 6.8 Sun

OSAKA CITY CENTRAL PUBLIC HALL 1st Floor

Admission Free

Program Curation: Umezu Gen (critic and curator)
Planning Support: Ishida Katsuya (MEM)

Access Timetable Pamphlet
Hagiwara Sakumi KIRI 16mm Film (Original) 9 min 1972 © Hagiwara Sakumi

Experimental films and video art heralded the arrival of the moving image as an art form. Fundamental explorations of expression have guided the use of film and video in contemporary art, and contemporary artists continue to transcend boundaries, engage in critiques, and return to reflexive inquiry as they search for future forms of the moving image works. In a world where we are surrounded by images, now is the time to confront the fundamental roots of to be reflected through optical mechanisms and electrical or electronic devices. This inquiry is inspired by the statement, “Inevitably, we must address the question of what it means to ‘to be being seen.’”*

*Statement by Hagiwara Sakumi in KIKAIDE MIRUKOTO = Eye Machine / To See by Chance.

Programs

  • A KIKAIDE MIRUKOTO = Eye Machine / To See by Chance –The Pioneers of Japanese Video Arts–

    Director: Taki Kentaro Produced by VIDEOART CENTER Tokyo 2013, 82 min

    Main artists featured in the program: Abe Shuya, Ando Kohei, Iimura Takahiko, Idemitsu Mako, Kawanaka Nobuhiro, Kubota Shigeko, Michael Goldberg, Kobayashi Hakudo, Nakajima Ko, Nakaya Fujiko, Hagiwara Sakumi, Matsumoto Toshio, Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, Yamamoto Keigo, Wada Morihiro

  • B Arrival of the Moving Image: Experimental Film, Video Art, Contemporary Art

    • Iimura Takahiko, Kuzu (Junk), 1962, 11 min 57 sec

    • Hagiwara Sakumi, KIRI, 1972, 9 min

    • Yamazaki Hiroshi, HELIOGRAPHY, 1979, 6 min

    • Matsumoto Shoji, CYCLE, 1969, 20 min 19 sec

    • Kashihara Etsutomu, Satawal, 1971, 18 min

    • Nomura Hitoshi, Turning the Arm with a Movie Camera: Person, Landscape, 1972, 11 min

    • Nakatsuka Hiroko + Hayashi Go + Mochida Akemi, THE COURT Tennyo no Niwa / Tennis court, filmed 1983, 15 min

    • Okuyama Jun’ichi, My Movie Melodies, 1980, 7 min

    • Kawai Masayuki, Video Feedback Aleatoric No.1, 2011, 3 min 11 sec

    • Taki Kentaro, prologue, 2004, 6 min 29 sec

  • C Exploration of Expression: Film and Video by Visual Artists

    • Muraoka Saburo, Kawaguchi Tatsuo and Uematsu Keiji (collaboration), Image of Image- Seeing, 1973, 12 min 30 sec

    • Imai Norio, En (Circle), 1967, 4 min 3 sec

    • Fukuoka Michio, Aesthetics of a Man, 1967–68, 3 min 24 sec

    • Hori Kosai, READING Session No.3, 1974, 20 min

    • Morimura Yasumasa, Me Holding a Gun: For Andy Warhol, 1998, 2 min 40 sec

    • Matsui Chie, HEIDI 46 — brick house, 2006, 15 min 27 sec

    • Shirai Mio, The Creative Act, 2007, 11 min 35 sec

    • Fujimoto Yukio, duet, 2021, 6 min 11 sec

  • D For Moving Image Works to Come: Interdisciplinarity, Criticality, Reflexivity

    • Orikasa Ryo, Miserable Miracle (Japanese dub ver.), 2023, 8 min 17 sec

    • Suzuki Ryoji, EXPERIENCE IN MATERIAL N0.43 CAHIERS, 2001, 8 min 25 sec

    • Komatsu Hiroko, Internal Impregnation, 2019, 7 min 30 sec

    • Kanemura Osamu, Topless Beaver Drive, 2019, 11 min 47 sec

    • Ishihara Tomoaki, Eye Throw, 2022, 2 min 36 sec

    • Takashima Shinichi + Nakagawa Shu, No experience necessary #1, 2022, 8 min 1 sec (looped)

    • Miyake Saori, Seascape (Suzu) 2, 2024, 11 min (looped)

    • Makino Takashi, The Low Storm, 2009, 15 min

    • Hayama Rei, The knot of meridian, 2015, 11 min 4 sec

Symposium

To Be Being Seen: Explorations in the Field of the Moving Image

June 7 (Sat) 15:20–18:00

*Japanese version only

  • Part 1: 15:20–16:30

    Examining the relationship between moving image works and art in Japan since the 1960s

    Speakers

    Moderator:
    Umezu Gen (Critic and curator)
    Panelists:
    Uematsu Keiji (Sculptor)
    Sakagami Shinobu (Art historian)
    Tasaka Hiroko (Curator of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)

  • Part 2: 16:40–18:00

    International perspectives on the appeal, distinctive characteristics, and potential of Japanese moving image works

    Speakers

    Moderator:
    Tasaka Hiroko (Curator of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum)
    Panelists:
    Makino Takashi (Filmmaker/Artist)
    Sakagami Shinobu (Art historian)
    Umezu Gen (Critic and curator)
    Ulanda Blair (Curator of Moving Image at M+)
    Sing Song-Yong (Professor, Taipei National University of the Arts, Ph.D. in Cinematography)
More details

Profile

Umezu Gen (critic and curator)

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1966. Completed the Master’s Degree Program at Tama Art University in 1991. Engages in interdisciplinary activities focused on writing and curating in the fields of visual art, photography, moving image works and music, in an exploration of the possibilities of art from modernism onward. Major curated programs include: “DE/construct: Updating Modernism—Three Programs Concerning Agi Yuzuru” NADiff modern & SuperDeluxe (2014), “Trans / Real: The Potential of Intangible Art” (Gallery αM, 2016-17), “Tomoyuki Higuchi DUB/stance” The White (2024). Curator from 1991 to 2021 at The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, where he organized/co-organized exhibitions: “VISUALIZATION in the end of the 20th century” (1994), “Donald Judd 1960–1991” (1999), “Plastic Age | Art & Design” (2000), “DECODE / Events & Materials: The Work of Art in the Age of Post-Industrial Society” (2019) and others.

Timetable

Timetable
Timetable PDF

Pamphlet

Pamphlet PDF

Grant

芳泉文化財団