Hara Museum ARC

Instead of fixing images on paper, the photographer Hitoshi Toyoda works exclusively in the medium of the slide show. Toyoda manually operates analog slide projectors using photographic material taken from the past. The subtle shifts in emotions that lie between the images that appear, then disappear remind us of the preciousness of each moment of our lives. The Hara Museum has the pleasure of presenting two slide shows by Toyoda on two separate evenings, both in the museum’s courtyard garden.

The featured shows are spoonfulriver, a visual diary newly arranged by Toyoda, and his latest work for Nine Postcards, a unique slide photo and musical homage to the late Japanese environmental music guru Hiroshi Yoshimura, consisting of Yoshimura’s slide images and music.

August 13 (Saturday) 19：15 –
spoonfulriver 　 2007-2016 / 70min. / 35mm slide film / silent
“It begins with an ordinary street in New York City. As if writing a letter to someone I cannot forget.”
This is Toyoda’s fifth installment.

August 14 (Sunday) 19：15 –
for Nine Postcards 　 2015 / 40min. / 35mm slide film / sound
*Post-screening Talk: Tsutomu Mizusawa (Director, Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama) x Hitoshi Toyoda
The talk will be held in Japanese for about 30 minutes.

Drawing upon works from among the 2,800 slide photos left behind by the late Hiroshi Yoshimura, Toyoda created this latest work on commission by the Museum of Modern Art, Kanagawa & Hayama.

Place: The Hara Museum courtyard garden
*Or the Hall in the event of rain. Final determination will be posted on the Hara Museum website by 11:00 am on the day of the show.　 Tickets: General 1,800 yen; students and Hara Museum members 1,600 yen each (ticket price includes admission).
*Two-show ticket: General 3,500 yen; students and Hara Museum members 3,000 yen *Reservation closed for Two-show ticket.
* Reservations can be made by e-mail (toyoda-ticket@haramuseum.or.jp) or at the reception counter at the Hara Museum.
* Requests for tickets will be accepted from 11:00 am, July 1, 2016.
* Ticket-holders may view the current exhibition It’s Our Permanent Collection! prior to the start of the slide show. Visitors may leave the museum and re-enter (on the same day only) by showing their ticket stub.

Hitoshi Toyoda (b.1963)
Photographer. Born in New York and raised in Tokyo. Embarked on the self-study of photography after a trip to New York in 1986. Using New York as his base from 1993, he began exhibiting his visual diaries as live slide shows, manually operating analog slide projectors at public places that included parking lots on Broadway, parks in Chinatown, churches and theaters. From 2000 Toyoda began presenting his slide shows throughout Japan at museums, galleries and other art spaces, as well as abandoned elementary schools deep in the mountains and the prehistorical Sannai-Maruyama site in Aomori. He has presented his work at film and art festivals throughout the US and at the Yokohama Triennale in 2014. He has been based in Japan since 2012.

Hiroshi Yoshimura (1940-2003)
Sound artist. Born in Yokohama. Studied art at Waseda University. In addition to concrete poetry and graphic notation, Yoshimura left behind a body of work that included sound installations, performances using one-of-a-kind musical instruments and the design of sound environments at such public spaces as train stations, hotels and museums. His last work was a sound logo commissioned by the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama in 2003. Yoshimura visited the Hara Museum in 1980 and was inspired by the landscape to create music which was later played at the museum.

Venue

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art

Organized by

Hara Museum of Contemporary Art

Cooperation provided by

the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama

Technical support provided by

Tetsuya Yamamoto（SHOUT）