Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of AIDA Makoto, ‘Don’t expect anything from me any more.’

Aida’s last solo show, “Monument for Nothing”, was held at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum from November 2012. In four and a half months it drew over 490,000 visitors. In an all-embracing retrospective covering a range of over twenty years, it surveyed Aida’s work right back to the time of his artistic début. 

Now, one year on. In “Don’t expect anything from me any more.” Aida’s first ever work as a film director will be exhibited as the central piece. The film came about in summer 2013 when, as part of his participation in the Setouchi International Art Festival, Aida spent one and a half months living by himself on Ogi Island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea, capturing footage with a video camera.

In the resulting work, ‘The Natives @ Ogi Island’, a pseudo-mythical narrative unfolds setting the figures of mysterious tribesmen, who have seemingly appeared through a timeslip, against the backdrop of the small island of Ogi with its ever-declining population. The narrator is a fictional documentary quiz program reporter, who visits the island in the hope of examining the lives of tribesmen to use as material for her quiz questions. The style of the film evokes genuine Japanese TV programs which combine historical documentary with fast-paced quiz show-style summaries of questions, often all narrated by a young female reporter. Dressed up as the tribespeople are various young Japanese artists who like the outdoors. 

According to Aida, ‘this film work is an unplanned creation recorded improvisationally in the summer holidays of some grown-ups. Think of it as art without pretension or swagger, and enjoy watching it to the full.`

The film lasts 50 minutes in total and will be screened every hour, on the hour, from 11a.m. onwards. We would be delighted to welcome you to the gallery to see it. (There will be eight screenings a day, the last one starting at 6p.m.) Furthermore, in the gallery’s inner rooms a selection of illustrations and other works Aida has produced will be available to view.

*image (left)
© Makoto Aida
courtesy Mizuma Art Gallery