Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010
Artists Talk
September 13 (Sat), 2025
- Upcoming Events
- Exhibition Related
- All
- Translation available
To commemorate the opening of Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989-2010, the National Art Center, Tokyo, will host “Artists Talk” featuring participating artists. Following the structure of the exhibition, three artists and one artist group will take the stage, representing the three chapters (curatorial lenses) of “The Past is a Phantom,” “Self and Others,” and “A Promise of Community,” as well as “Introduction: A Critical Turn.”
Yukie Kamiya, Chief Curator and Head of Curatorial Division, and Jihye Yun, Curator, will serve as navigators, guiding the discussion with each artist. This Artists Talk will offer the opportunity to learn the background of the art-making and presentation of the exhibited works, as well as to examine what the artists experienced and practiced in reality during that era.
Event Information
- Date
- September 13 (Sat), 2025
- Time
14:00 – 17:00 (Door opens at 13:30)
- Venue
The National Art Center, Tokyo, 3F Auditorium
- For who
- All
- How to Participate
Numbered tickets will be distributed from 11:00 at the Information Counter (1F).
- Capacity
Limited to 200
- Admission
Free admission for Prism of the Real exhibition ticket holders.
- Organized by
The National Art Center, Tokyo; Japan Arts Council; Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
Grant from
Mondriaan Fund
- Inquiries
For general inquiries: (+81)47-316-2772 (Hello Dial)
- Remarks
*Time and content may change without prior notice.
*English-Japanese simultaneous interpretation available.
*Recording or photography of this event is not permitted.
*The video recording of this event will be available online at a later date.
*Please note that photo documentation of this event may be published for the purpose of our activity reports and publicity.
Details
Timeline:
14:00 Greetings: Osaka Eriko, Director General, the National Art Center, Tokyo
14:05 Introduction: Kamiya Yukie, Chief Curator, the National Art Center, Tokyo
14:20 Talk 1: Morimura Yasumasa (Introduction: A Critical Turn)
14:55 Talk 2: Kazama Sachiko (The Past is a Phantom)
15:30 intermission (15 min.)
15:45 Talk 3: Fiona Tan (Self and Others)
16:20 Talk 4: Xijing Men (Ozawa Tsuyoshi and Gimhongsok) (A Promise of Community)
* Ozawa Tsuyoshi will participate via online.
17:00 End of the session
Speakers
MORIMURA Yasumasa
 |
Born in Osaka City in 1951. Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Kyoto City University of Arts, and completed the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the same university. He has been working on self-portraits for more than four decades. Since his first self-portrait, “Portrait – Van Gogh” (1985), the artist has transformed himself into many diverse subjects to focus on icons in art history, pop culture or journalism. In 1989, he was selected for the Venice Biennale/Aperto 88 and has since held numerous exhibitions both domestically and internationally. He served as Artistic Director for the Yokohama Triennale 2014. In 2018, he opened “Morimura @ Museum” in Kitakagaya, Osaka. Major solo exhibitions include “Yasumasa Morimura: The Sickness unto Beauty, Self Portrait as Actress”(Yokohama Museum of Art, 1996), “Yasumasa Morimura: Self Portrait as Art History” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 1998), “A Requiem: Art on Top of the Battlefield” (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2010), “The Self-Portraits of Yasumasa Morimura: My Art, My Story, My Art History”(National Museum of Modern Art Osaka, 2016), “Ego Obscura” (Japan Society/New York, 2018), and “Jam Session: Ishibashi Foundation Collection × Yasumasa Morimura M’s Gift of the Sea: Auto-Mythology” (Artizon Museum, 2021). As a two-person exhibition, “Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman: Masquerades” (M+/Hong Kong, 2024) and others. |
KAZAMA Sachiko
 Photo by Yoko Asakai |
1972 Born in Tokyo, Japan Lives and works in Tokyo, Japan By using abundant color expressions between black and white, Kazama engraves social and political satire and nonsensical human acts sometimes comically and sometimes delicately on her woodcut print with a delightful sense of humor. Through enormous research on history, past and present events intersect and create a fictional story in her work. Selected show/2023 New Matsushima, MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo, Japan /2024 The 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia |
Fiona TAN
Photo by Koos Breukel |
Born in 1966 in Indonesia and raised in Australia, Fiona Tan is an Amsterdam based visual artist and filmmaker who has worked in the Netherlands since 1988. Her installations and films examine memory, time, history and identity, building layered narratives from research, archival materials, photography and newly shot footage, and moving between documentary and fiction. She is currently presenting Fiona Tan: Monomania at the Rijksmuseum, on view from 4 July to 14 September 2025. This is the museum’s first exhibition curated by a contemporary artist and it occupies the Philips Wing. The show brings together works from the Rijksmuseum collection and loans with Tan’s own works, including the new video Janine’s Room (2025). Tan has participated in the Yokohama Triennale in 2001 and in Documenta 11 in 2002, and she represented the Netherlands at the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. Recent moving image projects include the installation Footsteps (2022) and the feature length Dearest Fiona (2023). Earlier, Ascent (2016) explored the visual culture surrounding Mount Fuji through found photographs and text. Her feature film History’s Future (2016) premiered in competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In Japan she has held solo exhibitions at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2013, at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum and the National Museum of Art, Osaka in 2014 to 2015, and at the IZU PHOTO MUSEUM in 2016. Her work is widely exhibited and collected internationally, across museums and film festivals worldwide. |
Xijing Men (OZAWA Tsuyoshi, CHEN Shaoxiong, GIMHONGSOK)
 From left to right: OZAWA Tsuyoshi, Gimhongsok, and CHEN Shaoxiong |
Collaborative art group made up of OZAWA Tsuyoshi (born in Tokyo in 1965), CHEN Shaoxiong (1962-2016, born in Shantou, China), and Gimhongsok (born in Seoul in 1964). In 2005, Ozawa and Chen formed a group, and later, in 2007, they invited their mutual friend Gimhongsok to join them. They work under the name Xijing Men, meaning people from the land of Xijing, fictional city-state somewhere in east Asia, Distinguished by a transgressive vision, the group’s projects center on performances, installations, and videos. Solo Exhibitions |
Streaming
Archived video will be available on the National Art Center, Tokyo’s YouTube channel at a later date.
