Announcement of TERRADA ART AWARD 2023 Finalists: Mitsuo Kim, Yuma Tomiyasu, Yuki Harada, Satoshi Murakami, and yang02

TERRADA ART AWARD is a contemporary art award designed to discover emerging artists. To discover artists who can play an active role on the world stage, the AWARD jury panel, with an international perspective and a deep understanding of contemporary art, has selected five finalists from 1025 entries from within Japan and overseas. The finalists’ works will be presented as TERRADA ART AWARD 2023 Finalist Exhibition at Warehouse TERRADA’s event space from January 10th* (Wed) until January 28th (Sun), 2024. On the first day, each jury’s award for five finalists will be awarded to the finalists by Takahiro Kaneshima, Yukie Kamiya, Yuki Terase, Daito Manabe, and Meruro Washida.

We want to foster a society in which artists can thrive. Through TERRADA ART AWARD, we fully support the careers of our finalists—artists with the potential to drive the arts forward into the future—as they venture out into the world, break conventions, and discover their raison d’être.
* Limited access for invitational guests only on January 10th

(in Japanese alphabetical order)

Takahiro Kaneshima (Associate Professor of Kanazawa College of Art)
I am once again in charge of the final-round screening after the last TERRADA ART AWARD, which was full of excellent works. This year, again, there were many proposals that I would like to see in an actual exhibition. However, I had the impression that many of the proposals that placed too much emphasis on explaining the concept, making it difficult to visualize the actual contents of the work or the exhibition plan, or that the work was dragged away by immediate information and had little connection with the artist and society.
While there were surprisingly few proposals that conveyed a strong will as an artist to create, challenge, or experiment with this opportunity, some artists came very close to being chosen as finalists. The five finalists however, were honest in their attempts to convey what they would like to accomplish in the future based on their past activities and productions, and how they continue to think about themselves in the society through their work. I anticipate that these strong feelings will be expressed in the form of concrete works at the coming exhibition.

Yukie Kamiya (Art Critic, Independent Curator)
It is good that the motivation drives you to create an artwork by looking at yourself. A large number of proposals began to talk about “I,” and applicants sincerely confronted their own roots and experiences. However, many of these thoughts remained within their own personal territory. It is said “the personal is political.” How can you lock and connect your hands to a world that is swirling with dynamic changes? Questioning socio-political structures, analyzing and exploring the relationship between the individual and the world is a necessary practice to enhance the depth and strength of the artwork. Among the applicants of TERRADA ART AWARD 2023, the finalists took a bold step forward in their attempts to question and challenge to the global world through each artistic exploration .

Yuki Terase (Art Intelligence Global Founding Partner)
I am pleased to see that TERRADA ART AWARD, now in its second occurrence since its re-launch, has already been recognized by artists as one of the most prominent open competitions in Japan, with a large number of proposals received again this year.
In the final-round screening, there were many cases where the concept and output of the portfolio of past works were very interesting, however there was a lack of development in expressions when transferring the work from there to the final exhibition proposal. In addition, there were many cases where the works should have been aimed for a universal appeal through personal interests and themes, but instead, the story was completed from start to finish within an extremely personal perspective of the world, making it difficult for the audience to understand the final message from the works.
In such situation, the five artists who made it the final stage had clearly established the method of verbalization in a given stage of expression, and the reason why they wanted to create the work in here and now. Considering the purpose of this award, which is to support artists who can work on the global stage, artists must have both of these abilities. I hope that those artists who were unfortunately not selected this year will continue to take on the challenges of these open competitions, and gain as much experience as possible as an artist.

Daito Manabe (Founder of Rhizomatiks, Artist, Interaction Designer, Programmer, and DJ)
After viewing many of the proposals, it was very interesting that the background and research themes of the works often originated from the artists’ personal experiences. I was impressed by the subsequent development and sophistication of these themes into social and political themes. However, only a few works seemed to fully elevate the depth and complexity of the themes into visual and dimensional expression. While many of the artists challenged themselves to incorporate global perspectives, some works were noticeable for their repetition of views considered universal, and a lack of sensitivity to social phenomena. Nevertheless, some works clearly conveyed the enthusiasm and passion of their explorations. I feel that these works drew the empathy of the jury members and were particularly impressive in this year’s selection.

Meruro Washida (Director of Towada Art Center, Associate Professor of Tokyo University of the Arts)
Kim has been creating multi-layered two-dimensional works with silkscreen by purposely using paraffin wax, a material that is slippery and hard to get ink to adhere to the top. In this exhibition, the artist combines a three-dimensional canoe made of paraffin wax with two-dimensional pieces. I expect that the wax will melt slowly during the exhibition, which will help the audience to feel the materiality of the wax.
Tomiyasu, who specializes in expressing the sense of anxiety in the daily life, will focus on “liminal space” this time. The use of inorganic office furniture will be a new challenge for the artist, as Tomiyasu will not use textured used furniture, which is the artist’s signature style.
Harada will tackle the theme of immigration using a digital technology called “face tracking.” I look forward to the crossing of the two major themes of “copying” in digital and “reproduction” in art.
Murakami plans to connect various objects in a theatrical manner, rather than the artist’s representative work of “carrying and living in a house on his back”. I have a high expectation for new developments in the expression that connects two-dimensional contours and three-dimensional objects.
yang02 has the most credible proposal in terms of feasibility, with a plan that combines elements with a proven exhibition record. It also fits the context of the “warehouse” which is the subject and venue of this award.
Although many works explored themes such as gender and immigration during the screening process, it was regrettable that we were only able to keep Kim and Harada’s work in the final stage. Many of these works used movies as their expression medium, which was one of the reasons why it was difficult to keep them, since the core of the works- the content of the movie had not been finalized at the screening stage. On the other hand, the theatrical expressions of Murakami and yang02 will bring a new direction to this award.

(in Japanese alphabetical order)

Primary selection jurys’ overall assessment: https://www.terradaartaward.com/en/finalist/
Jury’s profile: https://www.terradaartaward.com/en/member/

Name: TERRADA ART AWARD 2023
Qualifying Activity: Contemporary Art (including all forms of media such as two-dimensional works like paintings; photography; three-dimensional works (objects); textiles; videos; digital media art; physical expression such as performances, etc.; and sound art or music, etc.)
Prize: 3 million yen awarded to each of five finalists
* Includes fees paid to display the works of finalists at the Finalist Exhibition, as well as fees for creating and displaying new works
Supplementary Prize: Ruinart Blanc de Blancs, PIGMENT TOKYO products worth 100,000 yen, and free use of Warehouse TERRADA’s art storage services for 2 years
Held by: Warehouse TERRADA
Sponsor: Japan Airlines, MHD Moët Hennessy Diageo K.K.
Operation Support: Fujiwara Haneda LLC

https://www.terradaartaward.com/en

Final Jury: Takahiro Kaneshima (Associate professor of Kanazawa College of Art), Yukie Kamiya (Art Critic, Independent Curator), Yuki Terase (Art Intelligence Global Founding Partner), Daito Manabe (Founder of Rhizomatiks, artist, interaction designer, programmer, and DJ), and Meruro Washida (Director of Towada Art Center, Associate professor of Tokyo University of the Arts)
Primary Selection Jury: Ryo Ikeshiro (Artist, musician, researcher, Assistant Professor, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong), Shinji Ohmaki (Artist), Eriko Kimura (Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art), Ryutaro Takahashi (Psychiatrist, Art Collector), Yuu Takehisa (Curator, Artistic Director of Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito), and Reiko Tsubaki (Curator, the Mori Art Museum)

(in Japanese alphabetical order)

Five finalists will utilize the prize money and create a new work, based on their exhibition plans which would be reviewed by the jury at the final-round screening. The venue will be one of our event spaces which was renovated from a warehouse. (Free admission)
Dates: January 10th* (Wed) – January 28th (Sun), 2024 * Limited access for invitational guests only on January 10th

Details of the Previous Award (TERRADA ART AWARD 2021): https://www.terradaartaward.com/2021/finalist.html (Japanese)

TERRADA ART AWARD Office  E-MAIL award@terrada.co.jp