Special ExhibitionBinding Threads / Expanding Threads: The Art of Creating “Between-ness”

The greater part of a woven work is composed of air. Fiber usually comprises no more than 20% to 50% of the mass, and gaps are an essential element both in fiber twisted into thread and in threads woven together to create cloth. It is these gaps or spaces that give cloth its thinness and lightness, its robust ability to stretch and shrink, its warmth. The way the threads are woven together and the shape of the resultant gaps create the essential nature of the cloth, and gives it its particular character and expressiveness.
This exhibition offers an introduction to 15 artists and one group of artists who create with the material of fiber. The following words of foremost psychopathologist and pioneer of clinical philosophy Bin Kimura will serve as an introductory “thread” to the exhibition: “The Self is none other than the relationship between self and other — which includes not only the other of the present physical world but the other whom one faces in the moment, the groups to which one belongs, the worlds of past and future, and so on — and above all between self and self. ” (Kankei to shite no jiko (Self as Relationship), Misuzu Shobo, 2005). That is to say, through confronting thread and cloth, we are seeking to engage deeply with the self and with life itself.
The “thread” of the title — pronounced ito — is not only ito as material, but also ito in its other meaning of “intention”, the artists’ intentions. Just as threads cross and bind to produce cloth, the intentions of these artists have crossed and bonded together to produce this exhibition. Now we await you, the viewers, to visit this exhibition and further bind all into a relationship of “between-ness” through the weaving of your thoughts and responses.

Exhibition flyer（PDF:1.8MB）

artists
UEHARA Michiko, UEMAE Chiyu, OH Haji, KAGAJO Ken, KITAMURA Takeshi, KUMAI Kyoko,
SUZUTA Shigeto, SUDO Reiko, SEKIJIMA Hisako, TAKAGI Akiko, nui project, HIRANO Kaoru, FUKUMOTO Shigeki, FUKUMOTO Shihoko, HORIUCHI Toshiko, MIYATA Sayaka