The Mori Art Museum is pleased to present 'MAM Project 021: Melvin Moti.'
Europe-based artist Melvin Moti (born 1977, The Netherlands) produces films, sculptural works, installations, books etc. grounded in intensive research that explores neurological, scientific and historical processes in relation to visual culture.
At the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, Moti presented film diptych: Eigengrau (The inner self in outer space)(2011) and Eigenlicht (The inner self in outer space)(2012). Reminiscent of a 1970s sci-fi movie, Eigengrau comprises footage of revolving and moving images of readymade items with the moon's surface as a background. Eigenlicht meanwhile changing to vivid colors and emitting light when exposed to UV light. Both films cast questions on the nature. social values and functions of the objects and ask us to view these objects as they actually are, without social and historical context.
'MAM Project 021,' a solo exhibition introducing Moti's works for the first time in Japan, will showcase Cluster Illusion, a new series of dyed-silk works inspired by the Edo-komon patterns on kimono. Combining delicate komon patterns from kimono with star maps, Cluster Illusion challenges viewers to respect their own vision, to think with their eyes and follow the visual patterns on display. Alternating between abstraction and figuration, between the Japanese patterns symbolizing order and the random patterns of star constellations, the work examines the universal human tendency to conjure up pictures and grand visions from random dots and abstract figures. These visual stories that viewers create from randomness may in fact be self-reflection of their own thoughts and the work shifts the viewers' focus to such human cognitive reflection.
Melvin Moti
Born 1977 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He studied at the Acdemie Voor Beeldende Vorming in Tilburg from 1995 to 1999 and at De Ateliers in Amsterdam from 1999 to 2001. His Major solo exhibitions include: 'Echo Chamber'(Kunsthalle Lissabon, 2012), 'The Prisoner's Cinema'(MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, U.S.A., 2010), and 'E.S.P.'(Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2007). He has also participated in a number of group exhibitions including 'the 55th Venice Biennale'(2013) and 'the 5th Berlin Biennial'(2008). Moti stayed three months in Japan for the artist-in-residence program hosted by Art Initiative Tokyo (AIT) in 2013. He is also scheduled to participate in 'Yokohama Triennale 2014.'
*image (left)
Melvin Moti
Eigenlicht (The inner self in outer space), 2012
35mm film, no sound, 18 min.
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