Japanese-born artist Yu Araki is currently presenting his site-specific video installation ¡°Angelo Lives,¡± (2014) at Nakameguro¡¯s quirky The Container art space.
Literally a shipping container housed inside a hair salon, the small gallery is known for giving artists free rein to reinterpret the unique space, and Araki¡¯s video piece is no exception. Under the curatorial eye of Shai Ohayon, the exhibition, ¡°Wrong Translation,¡± is the artist¡¯s first solo show in Japan.
The 15-minute video piece begins as a journey across the seas, with the audience huddled inside the darkness of the shipping container ¡ª a set up that emphasizes Araki¡¯s recurring motif of the voyeur. Throughout ¡°Angelo Lives,¡± Araki intersperses imagery taken from a video-camera held in his mouth. Sometimes viewers are locked inside, looking outward from within, moving with the artist in his travels. Sometimes the mouth is duplicated, turning into a pair of lonely eyes, echoing Araki¡¯s fascination with the artist¡¯s marginalized viewpoint.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.