Home > Exhibitions > Museum Collection: Giving Forms to Daily Life
Giving Forms to Daily Life
About the Exhibition
What do the nonchalant expressions of works depicting casual scenes in daily life signify? What effect do the artists, who spend day after day painting and creating, and the works they have accumulated have? Mainly paintings, drawings, and three-dimensional works from our collection have been chosen from several viewpoints regarding production and (non-) routine. Experience encounters with images extracted from a world you are already familiar with and which appeal to your senses.
Infomation
- Venue
- KAMAKURA ANNEX
- Period
April 11 - July 5, 2020
June 9 - July 5, 2020
- Closed
- Mondays
- Opening hours
- 9:30–17:00 (Last admission at 16:30)
- Admissions
- Adults: 250 yen
Under 20 and Students: 150 yen
65 and over: 100 yen
High school students: 100 yen
Junior high school students and under 16: Free
* A person with disabilities and one accompanying caretaker are admitted free of charge upon presenting Disabled Person's Handbook or an equivalent government-issued identification.
* "Family Communication Day" offers a discount for all family members (except under 65 and over) accompanying children under 18 on the first Sunday of every month.
Greeting [as of April 2020]
Welcome to this exhibition entitled Giving Forms to Daily Life.
The Japanese title of this exhibition includes the word “katadoru,” which
is a verb meaning “to model something on… (give form to),” and employs the
Chinese character “象,” which is a hieroglyph of an elephant. Its prototype
can be identified in the inscriptions made on bones and tortoise carapaces
in ancient China during the Yin dynasty. It was modeled on the appearance
of a walking elephant seen from the side and rotated through 90 degrees. In
recent years, thanks to the progress in research, a group of images
depicting “elephants” have been found on wall paintings in caves presumed
to date back to forty thousand or more years ago.
“Modeling something on (giving form to)” an “elephant”—both the verb
“model” and the noun “elephant” are represented by the same Chinese
character “象.”
That was the starting point of mankind’s act of expression. But why did the
letter signifying an elephant assume the meaning of the verb “to model
(give form to)?” As a big and powerful existence, elephants have
overwhelmed human beings and been a subject of awe and respect from the
far-off past. Consequently, this animal may have come to signify
“appearance” of its own accord. The facts that elephants are popular among
children’s pictures of the zoo and that they are also depicted in cave
paintings suggest that the two are not unrelated. Artists are
metaphorically in search of “elephants” every day. That is indeed the
“elephant” as an image, too. Art is no other than to “model (give form to)”
the world.
In this exhibition, we have chosen works from our collection to introduce
the creative activities of artists who have been “giving form to images” on
a daily basis. At a time when we are confronting challenges to our daily
life, such works should encourage and cheer us up.
Last but not least, we would like to thank all those that have donated or
deposited precious works with us and to all others concerned for their
cooperation in organizing this exhibition.
MIZUSAWA Tsutomu
Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama
Works
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Kishida Ryusei,
Wheatfield and Stonewall in Early Summer, 1920
Museum collection -
Aoyama Yoshio,
Atelier, 1925
Museum collection -
Okazaki Kazuo,
Manegineko [Inviting Cat], 2006
Museum collection
photo by YAMAMOTO Tadasu -
Sano Shigejiro,
Sketch for the Book Design of Le Secret du Major Tompson by Pierre Daninos, 1958
Museum collection -
Matsumoto Shunsuke,
City, 1938
Museum collection -
Kinoshita Shoko,
Descendant child, 1963
Museum collection -
Shoji Fuku,
A Stone,1980
Museum collection -
Matsumoto Yoko,
Personal Sight, 2005
Museum collection -
Lee Ufan,
With Winds, 1990
Museum collection -
Kataoka Tamako,
Tsuragamae: Ando Hiroshige, 1973
Museum collection -
Aigasa Masayoshi,
Daily Life: At a Crossing, Waiting People, 1999
Museum collection -
Kobayashi Kiyochika,
Scene of Landing and Anabasis at Weihaiwei, 1895
Museum collection
Exhibition Views (Click on the thumbnail to enlarge)
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Exhibition View 1(Section1-3)
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Exhibition View 2(Section1-3)
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Exhibition View 3(Section 2)
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Exhibition View 4(Section 2)
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Exhibition View 5
(Section 2. Sano Shigejiro) -
Exhibition View 6
(Section 2. Sano Shigejiro) -
Exhibition View 7 (Section 2)
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Exhibition View 8 (Section 2)
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Exhibition View 9 (Section 2)
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Exhibition View 10
(Section 2. Sano Shigejiro) -
Exhibition View 11
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Exhibition View 12 (Section 3)
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Exhibition View 13 (Section 3)
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Exhibition View 14 (Section 3)
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Exhibition View 15 (Section 3-4)
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Exhibition View 16(Section 4)
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Exhibition View 17 (Section 4)
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Exhibition View 18 (Section 4)
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Exhibition View 19 (Section 4)
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Exhibition View 20 (Section 4)
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Exhibition View 21 (Section 5)
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Exhibition View 22 (Section 5)
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Exhibition View 23 (Section 6)
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Exhibition View 24 (Section 6)