nca | nichido contemporary art

nca | nichido contemporary art is delighted to announce the 7th group exhibition, “identity VII - curated by Fumihiko Sumitomo-”
This exhibition is curated by Mr. Fumihiko Sumitomo, an independent curator, under the theme of “Identity” from his point of view. Several international artists are featured in the exhibition.

Festina Lente
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Our world continues to change and evolve come what may. The path we took to get to where we are today and the road that lies ahead are not the same, however – what we need now is the will to challenge power structures that constantly seek to occupy a position of entrenchment and stability.

In a series of lectures entitled “Six Memos for the Next Millenium” written by Italo Calvino in 1985, the Italian writer proposed “lightness” and “quickness” as values that we ought to live by – two traits that genuinely reflect his personality. Over the course of these lectures, Calvino described how his work attempts to strip the human form, cities and the heavenly bodies of their heaviness and gravity. This weightlessness, however, cannot consist only of a state of lightness that dissolves like a dream: he subsequently goes on to extol the values of “exactitude”, “visibility” and “multiplicity”. The sixth and final value that would have been added to the list (Calvino unfortunately passed away before he could finish the last lecture) was “consistency”.
Calvino was not only an extraordinarily sharp writer, but also an astute observer who drew on his knowledge of cosmology, biology and mathematics to examine the minutiae of this world. These sciences produce a narrow, anthropocentric worldview in those who practice them. On the other hand, the sensibilities that we put to work when we enjoy and appreciate a work of art instills us with humility in the face of an exact, transparent conception of the world, and confronts us with the limits of our ego.

“As melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness, so humor is comedy that has lost its bodily weight. It casts doubt on the self, on the world, and on the whole network of relationships that are at stake.” (Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millenium)
The ability to observe the world carefully and to question the way it is involves a slow, sustained form of time. The leaps of an agile imagination ought to be endowed with a quickness that would allow us to shake off the heaviness of reality. Festina lente – hasten slowly.

It is precisely at a time like this that I would like to offer everyone this aphorism by Calvino.

-Fumihiko Sumitomo

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Fumihiko Sumitomo Born in 1971 / curator /
He has organized the exhibition titled “Out the Window” which featured Korean, Chinese and Japanese artists at The Japan foundation Asia Center (2005), and “Possible Futures- Japanese Postwar art technology” which featured from postwar art to current trend at ICC(2005). Also he was involved the exhibition “Beautiful New world in China to introduce Japanese contemporary art (2007). In 2008, He organized the exhibition, Tadashi Kawamata: “Walkway” at MOT (Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), also he was director of Festival for Arts and Social Technology Yokohama (2009), and co- curator of Media City Seoul 2010. His main discussion is : “gift of body( about Rirkrit Tiravanija)” (joint authorship:「Repesentive discourse 6 –“creation”」published by University of Tokyo press (2000), “Into the video” (The Encounters in the 21st Century: Polyphony-Emerging Resonance) 21st Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, published by tanko sha, 2004, “Complicated convenient time, and invisible art”,（joint authorship「The role of art in the 21st Century」published by Miraisha, 2006, “Next Creator book” (joint authorship), published by FILM ART