PARIS, FRANCE.- For the first time in France, The Fondation Cartier Pour L’art Contemporain presents a solo exhibition of Tabaimo, one of the most prominent young Japanese artists today. Far from the “cutesy” image of contemporary Japanese art promoted recently in Europe and North America, tabaimo’s works reveal the dark side of modern Japan through animated films and installations that take viewers into an alluring, strange and infinitely troubling world.

Born in Hyogo, Japan in 1975, the young Ayako Tabata was nicknamed Tabaimo—meaning, “Tabata’s little sister”—by a friend. In 1999, she created her first video works, immediately drawing attention to the 23-year-old artist and winning her the prestigious Kirin Contemporary Award, which sparked the beginning of her career. Japanese Kitchen (1999), her breakthrough work, displayed her country’s social and economic problems in a video installation that established her style from the outset: animated films that combine drawings evoking the “hand-made” nature of traditional Japanese wood prints with sophisticated computer technology. In 2001, she was the youngest artist invited to participate in the Yokohama Triennale. Her work was then shown internationally in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK, as well as at the 2002 Sao Paolo Biennale and in Sydney in 2006. For the first time in France, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain invites visitors to discover this artist’s universe through three video installations: Japanese Commuter Train (2001), Haunted House (2003), and Midnight Sea (2006).

A tale of modern Japan - From sushi preparation to the financial difficulties of “salarymen,” from idle youth to teenage angst, Tabaimo’s works are a bittersweet reflection of contemporary Japanese society, ranging from its most traditional aspects to its darkest underbelly. Inspired by banal news stories or TV programs, her anime films shift imperceptibly from commonplace scenes of everyday life to deeply enigmatic, fascinating and often disturbing situations.

They take place in quotidian settings—houses, suburban trains, public baths, pedestrian crosswalks—and paint a nostalgic picture of a once economically booming Japan. Projected across six screens, Japanese Commuter Train (2001) transports viewers into a Tokyo commuter train car. The drowsy office workers and students seated elbow to elbow on the long benches hardly seem perturbed by the appearance of some rather incongruous elements: a child hanging from a wrist strap, a chef turning a schoolgirl into sushi, or a pile of severed arms. Stereotypical images of commuter trains, sushi, and schoolgirls in pleated skirts are all interconnected here in a disturbingly bizarre fashion, creating scenes that are “horrible to see,” as the artist puts it, to point out that reality is actually much worse. Presented for the first time at the 2001 Yokohama Triennale, this work portrays the impotence of modern humans with an air of feigned detachment.

A world as sweet and cruel as life - Tabaimo reveals the violence of everyday situations in an apparently gentle manner, playing upon the transition between the normal and abnormal in each of her works. This duality is reflected in the artist’s unique technique of digitally coloring hand-drawn illustrations for her videos, that borrow colors from Hokusai prints. Generally projected at a rate of six images per second, her drawings scroll at a speed that also contrasts the frenetic pace of the modern world.

Made up of seemingly harmless incidents, Tabaimo’s works address the unspeakable in relationships between human beings and their surroundings. In Haunted House (2003), for example, the image gradually reveals, as it moves across 180 degrees, segments of people’s private lives that emerge out of the darkness as if lit up by a beam of light moving across an urban landscape. In a process the artist describes as “collage,” scenes of domestic violence including a man who has hung himself in the solitude of his apartment, a woman alone in front of her computer screen, and a child being carried out in a garbage bag, are depicted simply and with neither judgment nor taboo.

Please come in - Tabaimo creates complex environments that invite viewers to experience each work from the inside. The frontal relationship is abolished, leaving room for a more intimate or even interactive connection with the work. By setting up mini-structures inside the exhibition area, she recreates a physical as well as a mental space, as is the case in Midnight Sea (2006), which allows visitors to view the projection in various ways. A black and white seascape, its evocative wave motifs plunge visitors into a dreamlike reverie where traditional Japan meets its modern-day counterpart.

Tabaimo is considered one of the most original figures on the Japanese contemporary art scene. In March 2006, she was invited by Asahi, the country’s leading newspaper, to publish a drawing per day inspired by Akunin, a novel by the Japanese writer Shuichi Yoshida. In these illustrations, as in all of her works, the artist simply provides us with a mirror, rather than a critical analysis, in which our dreams and our fears, the real and the absurd, are reflected and intermingle. The exhibition Tabaimo is organized with support from the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, under the aegis of the Fondation de France, and with the sponsorship of Cartier.