The installation, the homemaker and her domain is part of the triennale, that this year is lead by the theme Still Alive, an homage to Aichi born artist On Kawara.
The space chosen for Leonor Antune’s installation is the Sumi Memorial Hall, the only remaining example of Modernist architecture by Tange Kenzo, Pritzker winner in 1987, in the Aichi Prefecture, in Japan. An appropriate place for Antunes, who dedicates her work to studying and evoking the work of Modernist authors, designers and architects.
The installation, the homemaker and her domain, was first presented at the Autumn Festival, in Paris, in 2021, occupying the chapel of the Parisian fine art school and also the Maison André Bloc de Meudon. At the Aichi Triennale the full installation is presented, and at the same time at Taka Ishii gallery in Tokyo (from August 6th) the homemaker and her domain, IV is shown, with new and recent works that belong to the same series.
The centre of the work are these movements of Yamawaki and Perriand between Europe and Asia, and subsequent influences in their work, as well as, the parallelism with the present and Antunes’ own relationship with Japan, a clear influence and interest.
The pieces that compose this installation are born of a research about two designers and two precise moments in their careers: the period Japanese Michiko Yamawaki spent at the Bauhaus school (from 1930 to 1932, she was one of four Japanese women to ever attend the school) in Dessau, and the two periods that French Charlotte Perriand spent in Japan (1940-1942 and 1953-1955). The centre of the work are these movements of Yamawaki and Perriand between Europe and Asia, and subsequent influences in their work, as well as, the parallelism with the present and Antunes’ own relationship with Japan, a clear influence and interest.
The triennale’s theme, Still Alive, is a reference to conceptual artist On Kawara and his 1970s series, I Am Still Alive, in which the artist sent telegrams to a dozen people in the art world with that simple declaration, like another one of his series, in which he sent a postcard with the sentence I Got Up, followed of the exact time he had woken up that day. The first telegram, I Am Still Alive, was sent to collectors Dorothy e Herbert Vogel. Besides Leonor Antunes’ work the triennale shows work by Kader Attia, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Kate Cooper, Theaster Gates, Claudia Del Río, Anne Imhof, among others.
The Aichi Triennale is open till October 10th, and the homemaker and her domain, IV at Taka Ishii Gallery, is on till September 3rd.
