TOM HAMMICKHAROON MIRZAJENNIFER E. PRICE

8 JUNE–19 JULY 2012

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London NW1 4QP

DAIWA FOUNDATION

ART PRIZE 2012

We have been gratified by the tremendous response to the Prize. This time round, there were over 700 applicants, and our expert judging panel, chaired by Jonathan Watkins, has selected artists of high calibre from all corners of the visual arts. The works by the three short-listed artists featured in this exhibition are conceptually rich and ripe for engagement with Japan. Warm thanks are due to the panel members – Jonathan Watkins, Martin Gayford, Mami Kataoka, Grayson Perry, and Masami Shiraishi – for so generously contributing their time, energy and insights through what was inevitably an arduous and intensive selection process. The Trustees of the Foundation join me in offering congratulations to Tom Hammick, Haroon Mirza and Jennifer E. Price. We hope that, in awarding the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, we will not only open new doors for British artists in Japan but create valuable partnerships and opportunities for the future.

Jason JamesDirector GeneralThe Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

The Foundation is delighted to be hosting this exhibition, marking the second award of the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize. Launched in 2008, the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize aims to open doors for British artists in Japan, offering the winner a solo show in a top Japanese gallery, and complementing the access we provide for Japanese artists in our own gallery in London. The inaugural Prize was won by Marcus Coates, who held an extremely well-received solo exhibition at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo in November 2009, and whose career has continued to flourish on the international stage thereafter. The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation makes funding available across all fields to support closer links between the United Kingdom and Japan. We have a considerable track record of supporting the arts and enabling individuals and organisations from both countries to interact and cooperate on joint projects. The Daiwa Foundation Art Prize evolved from discussions with the arts community as to how we might adopt a more proactive and innovative approach in engag-ing with contemporary art circles. Partnership with leading figures in the art world is an essential element of the Prize and we are particularly grateful to Masami Shiraishi of the Tokyo gallery scai the bathhouse for agreeing to host the solo exhibition by the winning artist this year. Shiraishi Contemporary Art Inc. (SCAI) was founded in 1989 and its gallery, scai the bathhouse, is a conversion of a former public bath-house in Tokyo. Mr Shiraishi has established himself over the last two decades as one of the leading figures in Japan’s contemporary art scene.

DAIWA FOUNDATION ART PRIZEIntroducing British Artists to Japan

self-doubt. Whoever you are please make the most of the opportunity that this art prize affords you. Japan can be a dream come true. And for those who are not the artist winner, you may be on a long or long-short, or short-but-not-short-enough-short list, but the fact that you didn’t win is nothing to do with essential inadequacy. You might have won last time, or perhaps will win next time. Hell is other people, or at least another person. Blame us, as we take responsibility (in an existentialist kind of way).

Jonathan Watkins

For those of us judging, there is an existentialist drama arising out of art prizes. We are locked in a room, for at least a day – not some Sartrean eternity, blessedly – with others who share the same absurd project; that is the selection of one artist, from hundreds of others, who will go forward to collect a prize. An artist winner? We could not be more aware of the fact that beauty, or emotional profundity, or smartness, or poetry, is in the eye or mind of the beholder. We need to talk through our responses to what we see, through PowerPoint presentations, to arrive at a consensus at least to agree to disagree with respect to each artist. We keep on moving towards a goal that has been set and one we accept in good faith (in an existentialist kind of way). I was going to say, jokily, ‘But enough of us!‘, but seriously it is us. Five individuals: Martin Gayford, Mami Kataoka, Grayson Perry, Masami Shiraishi and Jonathan Watkins. The idea that somehow we are vehicles for an assessment that transcends all-too-human idiosyncrasy is philosophically untenable. We all know that another gang of five would arrive at a different shortlist and a different winner. This is not a problem, but rather something to celebrate. We are unflinching in our acceptance of what’s real, a wonderful relativism. Frankly that’s why we are in the thrall of this thing called art, at once this-is-this, seductive, as radical as it is a luxury. It is absolutely undefinable. The artist winner? Whoever it is will know (as an existentialist ‘being for itself‘) that the universe has served up another accident to enjoy rather than to be dwelt on with perverse

US

The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation is a UK charity, established in 1988 with a generous benefaction from Daiwa Securities Co Ltd. The Foundation’s purpose is to support closer links between Britain and Japan.

It does this by:

• making grants available to individuals, institutions and organisations to promote links between the UK and Japan across all fields of activity

• enabling British and Japanese students and academics to further their education through exchanges and other bilateral initiatives

• awarding Daiwa Scholarships for British graduates to study and undertake work placements in Japan

• organising a year-round programme of events to increase understanding of Japan in the UK

Daiwa Foundation Japan House, the London-based headquarters, acts as a centre for UK-Japan relations in Britain by offering a wide programme of lectures, seminars, book launches, courses and exhibitions as well as meeting rooms for Japan-related activities and facilities for visiting academics. The Foundation is represented in Japan by its Tokyo Office, which provides local assistance to Daiwa Scholars and administers grant applications from Japan. It also handles general enquiries and forms part of the network of organisations supporting links between the UK and Japan.

ABOUT THE DAIWA FOUNDATION

image 1

Tom Hammick, Island Studio, 2011-2012

Reduction woodcut, 183 x 363cm

Courtesy the artist and Eagle Gallery, London

in landscape (something I have been interested in for quite a long time - though previously depicted as more of a Boys’ Own fantasy of the trapper or hillbilly shelter, set in a North American wilderness), as a metaphor to express both how fragile our interwoven existence is on Earth, and how precarious the conjuring and arrival of creativity is for an artist. Lately, I have also been using these sorts of images to investigate a more celebratory relationship between dwelling and environment: for me, a theme of wonder and a possible answer in the quest for contentment in life. At root, these paintings and woodcuts of mine dwell on quite personal requirements for happiness: a love of the natural world and, as far as possible, simplicity in living.

Tom Hammick May 2012

My work is concerned with a sense of landscape as metaphor: for the human condition, for states of mind and the imagination. Over the last year, the imagery of my paintings and woodcuts has shifted away from the actual or observed, from natural phenomena in landscape I have experienced, towards a more imaginary and mythological dreamscape; a slightly dystopian world, centered on the simple life. This recent work, though sourced in part from drawings and photographs made in the area where I live (on the edge of the Weald in East Sussex) has also been inspired by certain Asian texts that describe living in a shack in the wilderness. Po Chi-i’s moving account of living in his thatched hall on Mount Lu, Kamo No Chomei’s beautiful description of living in a ten foot square hut on Mount Hino (with a geopolitical backdrop of famine, war and uncertainty), and Matsuo Basho’s sunnier and more upbeat rendition of his 6-month sojourn on the shore of Lake Biwa, east of Kyoto, have all meant much to me. They hot-wire you into the overpowering and heightened experiences of living a weather-beaten life in the countryside. So many ancient Chinese scroll paintings and Japanese prints allude to this, which connect also to the feelings that Louis MacNeice describes in his poem Snow: ‘Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: World is suddener than we fancy it. World is crazier and more of it than we think, Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion a tangerine and spit the pips and feel the drunkenness of things being various...’ I have used this recurring motif of a rural shed, set

TOM HAMMICK

Roll of Ipsden and the artist Alla Tkachuk who painted his portrait hung at the Daiwa Foundation Japan House. LED strips form an extended frame around the painting attached directly to the dado material already framing the work. This makes the work both specific to the architecture and the painting. These LEDs generate a sound that form part of an audio composition dedicated to the painting and Lord Roll. The rest of the composition is generated from a bicycle light placed on the table under the painting. Also on that table are the speakers from which one can hear the piece.

Haroon MirzaMay 2012

Most recently I have been creating sculptural and site-specific installations that generate audio compositions. I have started thinking of myself as a composer of sorts where the composition of objects in space is equivalent to sound in time. My work on many occasions is collaborative and at times curatorial. I tend to take existing or readymade material such as furniture, LED lighting systems, moving image and household objects and alter their function. Sometimes I work with existing artworks and assign a kind of utilitarian function to them, usually to play a part in an audio composition or support something that is creating sound. The subject of my work tends to be socio-cultural phenomena such as club culture or religion in relation to music. One of my aims with my recent work is an ongoing attempt to try and reduce the materials I use to the bare minimum. This is always a complex aesthetic concern for me because by reducing material, I’m invariably removing content. In opposition to this aim, I often add physical objects or elements in a given space that always contain meaning and refer to ideas outside of the object’s physical entity, thus adding referential complexity between the object itself and the ideas it refers to. The result is an aesthetic logic that comes out of function and creates layers of meaning, reference, narrative and form. The work in this exhibition is an extension of my current investigations around occupying architectural features in exhibition spaces. It is a site-specific installation that forms a humorous and absurd tribute to both Lord

HAROON MIRZA

Tom Hammick, Germinate, 2012

Oil on linen, 183 x 249cm

Courtesy the artist and Eagle Gallery, London

Haroon Mirza, Digital Switchover, 2012

Mixed media, dimensions variable

Courtesy the artist

Photo Gunnar Meier, installation view in Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St.Gallen

Haroon Mirza, Digital Switchover, 2012

Mixed media, dimensions variable

Courtesy the artist

Photo Gunnar Meier, installation view in Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St.Gallen

Jennifer E. Price, Appassionata, 2010

Print, 240 x 162cm

Courtesy the artist

Photo: Ben Nielsen

for someone to say what it is and how to fix it. But that is the tragedy of inkblots. There is no right answer. But the beauty of an inkblot is that there is no wrong one either.

Jennifer E. PriceMay 2012

In our society of instant gratification advertising creates, fuels and feeds our needs with instant impact design and happiness offered in temporary bursts through consumerism. Mass-produced products have become the goal, and logos become our universal symbols. My aim is to use our dynamic collective symbolism to encourage interaction with art, employing the by-product to tackle the problem it created: the loss of a personal relationship between people and artwork and rediscovering one’s ability to generate a deeper experience. I was drawn towards psychiatric inkblots for their ability to have meaning individual to the viewer. Objects that perform a task for people in contemporary society are used to create works that convey a sense of wonder and familiarity by utterly simplistic means. The work is open to interpretation and asks the viewer to look beyond the obvious. The artist is removed from the final piece, the viewer makes it anything they see it to be and is an equal collaborator in the work: becoming the work’s meaning. The method of printing these pieces is hard work but it is also very caring. Wrapping fabric or paper around the object is like putting swaddling around a child – it is an act of love. At the same time it removes the purpose of the object. It is this oxymoron of giving and taking at the same time that, for me, acts as a metaphor for mental health disorders. The struggles of those with mental health disorders and the distorted and discriminative perceptions of the matter by society are a fundamental undercurrent throughout my artwork. When offering the inkblot up for inspection by an audience I am looking for an answer,

JENNIFER E. PRICE

Jennifer E. Price, Soixante-neuf, 2010

Print, 472 x 238cm

Courtesy the artist

Photo: Ben Nielsen

Daiwa Foundation Japan HouseLondon 8 June –19 July 2012

SCAI THE BATHHOUSE

Tokyo 16 November –20 December 2012

Selection panelMartin Gayford, Art critic and author Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum, TokyoGrayson Perry, Artist and 2003 Turner Prize winnerMasami Shiraishi, President, SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, TokyoJonathan Watkins (chair), Director of Ikon Gallery, Birmingham

Project organisers

Parker Harris

Graphic design: Belinda Magee