Hiraki sawa biography of christopher

Hiraki Sawa’s videos explore psychological landscapes, unexpected worlds and the interweaving of domestic and imaginary spaces.  Populated with animals, inanimate objects and people, his characters search for their ‘place’ in the universe as he explores ideas of memory, displacement and migration. 

Sawa is perhaps best known for an early animated work titled Dwelling (2002), completed while he was still in graduate school, in which airplanes take off, land, and travel throughout the interior space of an apartment.  Gregory Volk, in the essay for an exhibition at the Hammer Museum in 2005, wrote: “The more one spends time with the work…the more psychologically eventful these airplanes are, as they proceed on their inscrutable routes, seemingly at their own volition.

워싱턴 헐쇼언 미술관과 조각공원, LA의 해머미술관, 런던의 헤이워드 갤러리 등 유수의 미술기관에서 전시와 스크리닝을 하였다.

HIRAKI SAWA

Born in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan in 1977. One of the works in this series, Lineament (2012) is a two-channel video installation in which a male protagonist navigates a worn apartment.

The audio—performed by Dale Berning & Ute Kanngiesser—is a palindrome, with a modified turntable in the gallery space playing a record forward and then backwards.

 

With each new work, Sawa telegraphs more refined themes to his practice. Unlike these earlier works, Memoria Paralela unfolds from Sawa’s own perspective, shifting the narrative axis.

 

In /home (2021), presented in a solo exhibition, Sawa flew small airplanes within the ruins of his demolished childhood home.

The piece, featuring model airplanes flying around a small apartment room, was highly acclaimed and brought him to prominence. In recent years, he has been working on the expression of installation in which video and space interfere with each other. Also, he has participated in various large-scale international and group exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum) in 2019, Roppongi Crossing (Mori Art Museum) in 2016, the 12th Lyon Biennale in 2012, the Chengdu Biennale in 2011, and the 17th Sydney Biennale in 2010.

in sculpture from the University of East London in 2000. After completing the foundation course at the University of East London in 1997, Sawa graduated with his BFA in 2000 from the same university, and an MFA in Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London in 2003.

Hiraki Sawa

Hiraki Sawa, based between London and Kanazawa, creates works that combine moving image with sculptural and two-dimensional elements.

His IOTA series (2016) incorporates photographs from his grandmother’s albums, transformed into stamp-like images and overlaid with white ink patterns, reconstructing an imagined past.

The grooves of an LP record uncoil to become a line, then travel around in this liberated but perhaps indecipherable form. Subsequent works such as elsewhere (2003) and trail (2005) continued to stage toys, stationery, and the shadows of animals within everyday interiors, producing worlds in which reality and fiction intersect.

 

Since silts (2009), Sawa has expanded his practice into multi-screen installations incorporating sculptural and two-dimensional components, creating environments where moving images and exhibition space mutually resonate.

His works are held in the collections of prominent museums worldwide, such as Hirshhorn Museum (Washinton D.C.), National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), The Israel Museum (Jerusalem), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Mori Art Museum, and Takamatsu Art Museum. Memoria Paralela (2019) extends from his earlier diptych did I? (2011) and Lineament (2012), which reflected on memory and consciousness through the story of a friend who suffered amnesia.

No reproduction without permission allowed.

• Title: /home, /home (absence)
  Year: 2021
  Medium: single channel HD video with stereo sound, each
  Dimensions:

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The series takes its inspiration from, and is an ongoing means of processing, the sudden-onset and complete memory loss of one of the artist’s friends. Looping, meditative acts of repetition, patience and close observation are essential tools in understanding the way that memory works.

Hiraki Sawa (born 1977, Ishikawa, Japan) received his BFA from the University of East London and his MFA from the Slade School of Art at University College, London.  His work has been featured in the 2013 Biennale de Lyon, the 2010 Biennale of Sydney, 2008 Busan Biennial, the 2005 Yokohama Trienniale and the 2003 Biennale de Lyon.  Sawa’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Wilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art and Studies, Kibbutz Hazorea, Israel; VINCOM Center for Contemporary Art, Hanoi, Vietnam; Mori Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Chisenhale Gallery, London; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne;  Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Hammer Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles; Saint Louis Art Museum, St.

Louis; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Wooster College of Art, Wooster; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; Firstsite Contemporary Art Centre, Essex; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; and the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie et Musée du Temps de Besançon with Le Consortium, Dijon.

Hiraki Sawa’s works are included in the public collections of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan; CAB, Burgos, Spain; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Leon, Spain; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom; Saint Louis Art Museum, St.

Louis; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC; Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan; UBS Art Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel; and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia.  Hiraki Sawa lives and works in London, United Kingdom.

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