Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars

October 30 (Wed), 2024 - December 16 (Mon), 2024

Past Exhibitions
Special Exhibitions

This will be the first solo museum exhibition in Asia by Ei Arakawa-Nash, a Japanese American artist who has been at the forefront of renewing the visibility and advancement of performance art internationally since the 2000s. The exhibition, titled Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars, is a solo show by Arakawa-Nash, but the works of more than fifty musicians, painters, and others who collaborate with him will also appear in the national museum space. Each of the paintings and pieces of music will be worshiped as if it were a pop star with its own aberrant presence, and Arakawa-Nash will generate performances inspired by the attitudes of pop stars.

We invite you to experience Arakawa-Nash’s performance art, in which children, paintings, histories, music, bodies, conversations, and humor work together in a dissonant and yet enveloping way. In addition to several newly constructed installations in the 2,000 m² (21,500 ft²) floor space of the museum with 8 m high ceilings, live performances by Arakawa-Nash will be held regularly. In addition, Arakawa-Nash, who “wants to greet the audience,” will lead “short but intimate” tours.This is the first solo exhibition by a performance artist at the National Art Center, Tokyo, since its opening in 2007.

Ei Arakawa-Nash performing with works by following 45 groups ;
Forrest Arakawa-Nash with Yuki Tanaka, Kerstin Brätsch with Hayata Ishikawa & Noboru Ishikawa, John Cale/Tony Conrad/Terry Riley, Masaya Chiba with Ayumu Murase, Leidy Churchman, Bruce Conner/Miles Davis/Jay Defeo, Maya Deren & Teiji Ito, Nicole Eisenman, Kim Gordon, HappiLife Channel, Miho Hatori, Celia Hollander, Karl Holmqvist, Miyoko Ito, Kosuke Kameda, Yuki Katsura, On Kawara, Jutta Koether, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Toshi Maruki (Toshiko Akamatsu) with Saho Terao, Henri Matisse with Yumi Matsutoya & Masataka Matsutoya, Shimon Minamikawa, Daishiro Mori with Tao Haba/Zen Haba/Toramaru Kasai/Tsurunosuke Kasai/Miu Kitayama/Sora Kitayama/Chifuyu Miura/Shigure Miura/Ito Mori, Oscar Murillo with Piaopiao Gong-Yang/Yuki Ito/Siying Li/Jingwei Ou, Luis Nishizawa, Silke Otto-Knapp with Asahi Ishikawa/Ikumi Yang, Laura Owens, Gela Patashuri, Dan Poston, Seth Price, Quartet Arco, RIRI & TOKI, Reiji Saito, Trevor Shimizu, Shinjuku Ryozanpaku (Mamoru Arasawa/Ko Hiroshima/Yoji Matsuda/Kumiko Watarai), Fujiko Shiraga, Amy Sillman with Marina Rosenfeld, Atsuko Tanaka, Theatre Company LGBTI Tokyo with Yuriko Kozumi/Pico (Takahiko Saito)/Mayu Takahashi, Reiko Tomii, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, UNITED BROTHERS, Yui Yaegashi, Jiro Yoshihara, museum volunteers aged 65 & older, and others.

Curated by Naoki Yoneda［Curator, The National Art Center, Tokyo］

There will be various performances during the exhibition. Please check the schedule on the calendar linked below.
Performance_Calendar.pdf

Overview

Period: October 30 (Wed), 2024 – December 16 (Mon), 2024

Closed on Tuesdays
Opening Hours: 10:00-18:00
*10:00-20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays
(Last admission 30 minutes before closing)
Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo
Special Exhibition Gallery 2E
7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8558
Organized by: The National Art Center, Tokyo; With the cooperation of
Taka Ishii Gallery; Nakagawa Chemical Inc.
Admission (tax included): Free
Inquiries: (+81) 47-316-2772 (Hello Dial)

Ei Arakawa-Nash

Japanese American queer performance artist now based in Los Angeles, after two decades in New York. By continuously working with others, Ei Arakawa-Nash (b.1977 in Fukushima, Japan) reconfigures the subjective “I.” The group performances within which Arakawa-Nash works emphasize and derive from the ever-present precarity of artworks and artist subjectivity. He is a professor in the Grad Art program at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

Recent solo exhibitions include shows at Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg (Fribourg, 2023), Tate Modern (London, 2021), and Artists Space (New York, 2021), among others. Group exhibitions have taken place at Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile［CHAT］ (Hong Kong, 2024), Musée d’ Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg, 2021), Honolulu Biennial (2019), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017), Berlin Biennale (2016), Gwangju Biennale (2014), and Whitney Biennial (New York, 2014), among others. Arakawa-Nash’s works are held in a number of major collections, including the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves (Porto), and Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej (Warsaw), among others.

Artist’s Comment

This is the first large-scale solo exhibition of a performance artist at the National Art Center, Tokyo. Somewhere in the back of my mind was the presence of the Tadasu Takamine exhibition in 2011, the recent Dumb Type and Chim↑Pom exhibitions, and the Rei Naito and Shimabuku exhibitions I saw this summer. I hope the “swell” of Japanese performance that artist Yoshio Shirakawa refers to will continue in Generation Z!

At the same time, there is the toughness of having to decide every detail six months in advance for the installation company bidding process at national museums. What if stressful contradictions arise? Performance art starts to grow during its becoming in front of audience members.

This exhibition will denitely come only once in my life. Please let me deliver it to you with a playful attitude.

Ei Arakawa-Nash

Exhibition Highlights

Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars
Installation view of The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2024
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Performances with paintings:

This is the first solo exhibition of a performance artist at the National Art Center, Tokyo. The performances scheduled during the exhibition include Mad Garland, a communicative dance through paintings; Tabards for Ei, 50 wearable paintings; and Nemesis Painting, in which visitors are sucked into paintings.

Ei Arakawa-Nash, Nemesis Painting
2024
Performance View
The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2024
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Jutta Koether with Ei Arakawa-Nash, Mad Garland
2024
Performance View
The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2024
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Weekly artist-led tours:

The design of these tours is: “Free to hop on and off. You can join and leave when you want.” The English tour will be led by Forrest Arakawa-Nash, the artist’s husband and the founder of Contemporary Art Library.

Amy Sillman, Tabards for Ei, 2013, Jiro Yoshihara, White on Black, 1965
Performance View
The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2024
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Ei Arakawa-Nash, Panels (Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum I, 1953), 2024
Performance View
The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2024
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Mega Please Draw Freely:

In 2021, the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern first presented Arakawa-Nash’s Mega Please Draw Freely, a tribute to Jiro Yoshihara of the Gutai Art Association. The current iteration of this participatory installation, which will take place every Sunday during the exhibition’s run, allows anyone to draw freely on the floor of the museum. After the exhibition, this installation will travel to Haus der Kunst, Munich, in 2025.

Ei Arakawa-Nash, Mega Please Draw Freely, 2024
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Reiji Saito with Ei Arakawa-Nash, 159 Children (Tuesday at the NACT, National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan)
2024
With the cooperation of Akasaka Elementary School, Nanzan Elementary School, and Hommura Elementary School
Supported by GINZA SIX Retail Management Co., Ltd.
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Rare Painting Sightings:

This includes drawings from 1964 by On Kawara that incorporate imagery of a newborn baby and homosexuality; a painting by Miyoko Ito, a Japanese American abstract painter who has gained wider recognition in recent years; Nicole Eisenman’s rarely seen portraits of her children; a new twin-stroller painting by Yui Yaegashi; Kerstin Brätsch’s seven Kite Paintings; new works by Oscar Murillo activated with the Japanese public; and a new 6-meter painting-structure by Shimon Minamikawa.

Shimon Minamikawa, 4 × 4 painting, 2024
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

On Kawara, Paris–New York Drawing no. 15 of 198, 1964, Paris–New York Drawing no. 130 of 198, 1964
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Music x Painting Projects:

YUMING and Masataka Matsutoya inspired by Henri Matisse
Saho Terao inspired by Toshi Maruki (Toshiko Akamatsu)
Miho Hatori with Ei Arakawa-Nash inspired by David Medalla
Kim Gordon inspired by Yoko Ono

Henri Matisse, Face, 1951, Face, 1951 & Yumi Matsutoya, Masataka Matsutoya, The Day of a Little Bird, 2024
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

LED Painting Fantasies:

The Japanese philosopher and writer Masaya Chiba’s first play script will be performed by four LED reproductions of paintings by Robert Rauschenberg. Their multiple voices will be provided by the chameleon-like voice actor Ayumu Murase. The exhibition will also feature LED reproductions of the 1950s Lower Manhattan queer scene that included artists Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Agnes Martin.

Masaya Chiba with Ei Arakawa-Nash, Summer Rental, 2024
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Voice: Ayumu Murase
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Film interpretations of performance and painting:

Arakawa-Nash invited the artist Reiji Saito to film Arakawa-Nash’s performances for Saito’s own film pieces. Some performance locations are the National Art Center, Tokyo, in its Kisho Kurokawa–designed building; the Otsuka Museum of Art in Tokushima Prefecture; and Tokyo’s latest cultural and commercial development, Azabudai Hills. A newly restored 1967 video work by Bruce Conner, which features American painter Jay DeFeo’s 900 kg painting entitled The Rose (1958–66) and Miles Davis’s “Concierto de Aranjuez” (1960) will also be screened.

Reiji Saito with Ei Arakawa-Nash, Kosuke Kameda, Modèle (Otsuka Museum of Art, Tokushima, Japan), 2024
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Reiji Saito with Ei Arakawa-Nash, Asahi Ishikawa, Silke Ottp-Knapp, and Ikumi Yang, Untitled (Silke Otto-Knapp at Nogizaka Station & The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan), 2024
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Birth Countdown!

Using egg donation and surrogacy in California and Texas, USA, Arakawa-Nash and his husband are expecting twins to be born on December 30, 2024. In the section of the exhibition titled “Painting & Parenting,” a countdown timer will be set up at the museum to announce on a national stage the arrival of babies for queer dads.

LGBTQIA＋ Baby Shower Event (November 30, 2024)
Performance View
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Nicole Eisennman, Freddy, 2009, George, c. 2009 & Daishiro Mori with Tao Haba, Zen Haba, Toramaru Kasai, Tsurunosuke Kasai, Miu Kitayama, Sora Kitayama, Chifuyu Miura, Shigure Miura, Ito Mori, Painting and Parenting: Emergent Language, 2024
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Photo: Shu Nakagawa
Courtesy of the artists and The National Art Center, Tokyo

Exhibition Review, Interview

November 25, 2024
Art Asia Pacific
The Year of Blockbusters at Art Week Tokyo 2024

November 14, 2024
NiEW
Ei Arakawa-Nash’s Solo Exhibition: A Unique Chance for the NACT to Dive into the “Strange”

November 8, 2024
THE ART NEWSPAPER
Ei Arakawa-Nash's Tokyo show tests the limits

November 7, 2024
FRIEZE
The Best Shows to See During Art Week Tokyo

Related books

A list of materials related to the exhibition that were introduced in the Art Library are available on the OPAC. Please click here to see the list on Past Exhibition-related Materials Exhibit page.

Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars

Overview