慶應義塾大学アート・センター　Keio University Art Center

The Keio University Art Center (KUAC) plans exhibitions of contemporary art motivated by the conviction that universities—as formative places of learning for the next generation—should create opportunities for students to be able to encounter diverse perspectives, including the works of artists who are still alive and experiencing current events. As an experiment, KUAC will be hosting an art project that will span over the next three years in collaboration with Motohiro Tomii, a sculptor known for his readymade works that unveil new aspects of and perspectives on everyday objects. This exhibition is an “event” set apart from time or space. In most cases, the draw of an art exhibition is its temporary and fleeting nature. By thinking about this “event” over a continuous three-year period, the organizers will push the boundaries of what can be achieved by an exhibition and attempt to reframe the concept of an “event” from the confines of a small exhibition room.

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For the upcoming program under “SHOW-CASE PROJECT Extra,” a single artist will introduce his approach to a new type of exhibition, one which will span three years in the same space.

“Showcase” here plays a double meaning, both referring to the literal “showcasing” of art, but also how artists must “show their case.” In other words, it is a “case” for showcasing given responses or attitudes towards topics. In the past, there was one particular artist who suggested a “case” exhibition thought process: Motohiro Tomii. Together, he and KUAC crafted a pilot project that would incorporate various approaches to this play on words.
Are not approaches shaped by the very frameworks of an exhibition? The limited 45m2 of a single exhibition room at KUAC, for example, becomes in itself a case study of a show-case. Or, to expand the lens even further, is not the very concept and framework of an exhibition a function of a “show-case”? This is where the “extra” in the title SHOW-CASE PROJECT Extra comes from: the “meta” or “extra” commentary being projected on and through this exhibition.
The three rounds of this exhibit will interrogate both the relationship of the art pieces to the exhibition as well as to the very framework of an exhibition. It takes an “event”—one that would normally be a momentary experience—and turns it into a continuous examination of spatiality when seen through iterations in time. We hope that this presents an opportunity for everyone, from organizers to artists to visitors, to think about and savor the phenomena and feelings that are elicited by this experiment. 

We welcome everyone to come and see this artist’s undertaking.