Oliver Beer, winner of the 2015 Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Art Prize, is currently holding his first solo exhibition in Japan at Gallery Aoyama/Meguro and ASAKUSA.
The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Art Prize gives British artists the opportunity to hold their first solo exhibition in a Tokyo gallery. Selected from over 800 applicants, Beer was born in Kent, England in 1985 and currently lives and works in Paris and Kent. He holds degrees in both composition and fine art, and his projects, which explore the resonance between architectural space and the human voice, have attracted considerable attention in recent years, having been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, the Pompidou Center, and MoMA PS1. In Japan, he participated in the "Condansation" exhibition (2014) organized by the Fondation Hermès.
Five works were on display at the Aoyama/Meguro exhibition. Each piece is simple yet captivating. Glass spheres arranged near the window, resting like weights on a stack of white paper, projected a clear, inverted image of Komazawa-dori Street. The small golden objects encased within the glass spheres are life-size replicas of the ossicles (malleus, incus, and stapes), tiny bones found in the middle ear of vertebrates that act as amplifiers for eardrum vibrations. Looking at the spheres from outside the exhibition, an indecipherable image painted on the wall inside the exhibition appears before one's eyes. The experience of gazing at the reality projected onto the spheres seems to embody the work's title, "Silence is Golden," while the presence of the ossicles quietly trapped within one's field of vision adds a touch of humor. And in his new work, "Life, Death and Tennis," an edited version of the television broadcast of the Wimbledon final, Beer removed the tennis ball and its sound from the footage. The audience's hands were sweating as they watched Andy Murray, the first British man to win the Wimbledon final in 77 years, erupt in rapturous cheers. The ball they were watching, and the sound of it disappearing, forced them to focus on traces of the absent presence and ponder the work's title. Also exhibited on the wall was "This is a Churchwarden Pipe," a three-dimensionally cut pipe embedded in the wall. Suggesting Magritte's "This is not a pipe," the work offers a new experience of "the betrayal of the image" by showing us a cross-section of the actual pipe, stripped of its function, and declaring, "This is a pipe." The exhibition at Space ASAKUSA, which opened in October, runs until December 6th. We hope you'll come and see Oliver Beer's first solo exhibition, which unfolds between the visual and auditory senses.
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【Exhibition Information】
Oliver Beer "Life, Death and Tennis"
Venue: Aoyama | Meguro
Dates: November 7th - November 28th (closed Sundays, Mondays and public holidays)
Time: 12:00 - 19:00
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Oliver Beer "Deconstructing Sound"
Venue: ASAKUSA
Dates: November 8th - December 6th (open only Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and public holidays, reservations accepted on weekdays)
Time: 12:00 - 19:00