Miwa Yanagi was born in Kobe, Japan, and completed a postgraduate course at Kyoto City University of Arts. In 1993, Yanagi held her first solo exhibition in Kyoto, where she currently lives. Since 1996, her work has been exhibited internationally. In 1999, she began creating the series My Grandmothers, which realizes the self-perceptions of several young women who were asked to imagine what type of woman they might become in fifty years' time. In 2004, she was invited to hold solo shows at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art in Kagawa, Japan. An exhibition featuring her recent Fairy Tale series exploring relationships between young girls and older women was organized by the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, in 2005. She has also had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2007, and at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2009. Running concurrently with her exhibition at the 53rd Venice Biennale will be a wide-ranging overview of her work at the National Museum of Art, Osaka.
Miwa Yanagi es una de las más importantes fotógrafas y videoartistas japonesas del mundo. Ha realizado prestigiosas exposiciones como las del Deutsche Guggenheim de Berlín, la del Museo Marugame en Japón o la del Museo Hara en Tokyo. Esta última es la más reciente y que bajo el título "El increible y triste cuento de la inocente Erendira y su abuela despiadada" agrupa obras de su última serie "Fairy Tale", entre las que se encuentran el video DVD "Suna Onna".
En "Fairy Tale" (Cuento de Hadas), que ya expuso la Galería Leyendecker en Noviembre del 2004, la artista se inspira en cuentos tradicionales para reinterpretarlos a través del prisma de su concepto artístico fundamental, la femineidad en torno al eje del tiempo.
El corto film "Suna Onna" (2005), presentado en Arco'06 en la Galería Leyendecker, utiliza un vocabulario similar al del simbolismo de la serie a la que pertenece, "Fairy Tale" pero en una forma mucho más personal. La historia es la de una abuela que cuenta a su nieta su encuentro con "Suna Onna " ("Mujer de Agua"), cuando era una niña. La intensidad visual inmediata de las imágenes del DVD, rodado en el Parque Natural de las Cañadas del Teide en Tenerife, nos adentra irremediablemente al terreno de lo sobrenatural.
Virtual Exhibition: 19 January – 19 July 2015 One of the hallmarks of the Teutloff Photo + Video Collection is that although it’s focused on the human body, it always carries a distinct political component. This fact created the idea for a so far unknown vantage point on the Collection – a "woman’s view" became the new approach for a virtual exhibition.
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Under the heading "Women: Powerful and Powerless" previously ignored or even discounted links between works and exciting new issues and areas of interest are opened – and I say this without any wish to enter the hotly contested ground of feminist polemics. The feminine view of the collection moves in the field of tension between birth, religion, politics, sexuality, beauty and body protest. It ...
Inspired by traditional fairytales like Cinderella and Snow White, the Japanese photographer Miwa Yanagi has enacted mythical stories. She examines the relationship between young and old women in the stories and makes sure to muddle up the concepts....
Miwa Yanagi represents Japan at the 53rd Venice Biennale with her installation entitled Windswept Women: The Old Girls' Troupe.
For this installation, Yanagi will take the Takamasa Yoshizaka-designed Japan Pavilion built in 1956 and cover its exterior with a black, membrane-like tent. Invoking the original idea of a "pavilion" as a free standing or temporary structure, the fluidity and mobility of the tent form will turn the Japan Pavilion into a temporary playhouse. Inside, Yanagi will install giant 4m high photograph stands containing portraits of women of varied ages. A new video work and series of small photographs will also be shown. Upon entering, viewers will feel disoriented, losing their sense of scale and perspective as they walk among oversized works.
The motif of this installation is a troupe ...
Miwa Yanagi is one of the most important japanese photographers and video-artists in the world. She has made prestigious exhibitions, as the ones in Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin, Museum Marugame in Japan, or Museum Hara in Tokyo. This last is the most recent one, and with the title "The incredible and sad tale of innocent Erendira and her grandmother", shows works of her recent series "Fairy Tale", belonging to this series her DVD "Suna Onna".
In "Fairy Tale", already shown in Galeria Leyendecker in November 2004, the artist gets inspiration from traditional tales to give them a new interpretation through the prism of her most important conception: women nature through the axis of time.
The short film "Suna Onna" (2005), shown also in Arco'06 at the Galeria Leyendecker, uses a very similar vocabulary to the "Fairy T...