TOKYO.- The MOT ANNUAL is a group exhibition that has explored the latest currents of contemporary art in Japan through the work of emerging artists, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) since 1999. For its 20th edition, MOT ANNUAL 2024: on the imagined terrain features four artists: Yuki Shimizu, Satoshi Kawata, Ryohei Usui, and Asami Shoji, who present their latest works.

Yuki Shimizu creates narratives by weaving together photographs and text based on her research of local history and folklore. In recent years, she has focused on ambiguous places such as seashores which constantly shift with the movement of waves and tides, attempting to capture the contours of Japan. In her latest work, Passage of Meteorites, Shimizu draws on the fictional story of Dalian’s coastal area and Tokyo Bay composed of photographs and recitation. Satoshi Kawata examines the structures and systems underpinning Japanese society, as well as their transitions over time, by producing, dismantling, and relocating mural paintings using traditional fresco techniques. For this exhibition, Kawata creates a mural painting approximately 50 meters long, exploring spaces that exist between urban and rural areas—places that have played a defining role in postwar Japanese society. Ryohei Usui has developed the ongoing series PET (Portrait of Encountered Things), in which he replaces plastic bottles and containers with glass sculptures, juxtaposing them with industrial products. His installation captures trivial daily moments and relocates them into different spaces, prompting viewers to reconsider the anonymous, everyday objects and situations that we are not usually aware of. Asami Shoji bridges the world within her works and the real world through paintings that vividly evoke the physicality of drawing and seeing. Shoji has been using semitransparent acrylic panels as support since 2016, repeatedly applying paint, scratching it, and wiping it away to create unique paintings characterized by their bustling array of lines and brushstrokes. Since last year, she has also started working with canvas in pursuit of richer, more eloquent expressions.

Through their respective approaches, these artists revisit the complexities of the world around them, giving them form through distinctive perspectives and artistic practices. These works invite viewers to question what forms the terrain around them and where it connects while opening pathways to the imagination. We hope this exhibition serves as an opportunity for everyone to look beyond existing frameworks and boundaries, contemplating a world where everything is inextricably interconnected.

Organizer: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo

Curated by Ai Kusumoto, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.