Koki Tanaka
Bio
In his work Koki Tanaka (b. 1975 Tochigi, Japan) focuses not on heroic visions or transcendent narratives but on the perplexities of everyday experience, which can be funny, mundane, pathetic, and, when attention is drawn to them, beautiful. His primary medium is ideas, and his projects test the limits of what is by imagining something slightly different and asking the viewer to do the same. The work on view, Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder (2012), follows a series of works that ask musicians to collaboratively reorient their typical methods of performing. The video installation focuses on two marimba players who are asked to negotiate the same instrument simultaneously. A performance in the space expands on these themes: a group of musicians play together, but each is situated near a single audience member, inserting an intimate rearrangement into the conventional performer-viewer divide. In Tanaka’s works, subtle changes such as these produce charming and insightful results.
Gallery
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanaka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012. Made in L.A. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, June 2-September 2, 2012. Photo by Brian Forrest.
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanaka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012. Made in L.A. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, June 2-September 2, 2012. Photo by Brian Forrest.
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012 (production still). Video installation, two channel HD videos, three drawings, 10 round acrylic mirrors, 20 chairs. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012 (production still). Video installation, two channel HD videos, three drawings, 10 round acrylic mirrors, 20 chairs. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012 (production still). Video installation, two channel HD videos, three drawings, 10 round acrylic mirrors, 20 chairs. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
Koki Tanaka
Koki Tanaka. Beholding Performer, Performing Beholder, 2012. Made in L.A. Installation view at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, June 2-September 2, 2012. Photo by Brian Forrest.