A series of special exhibitions held at the Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Museum of Contemporary Art, MonET from 2023. Guest curators will select an artist for each exhibition.

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Prologue to the Exhibition Series

The Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale has been working to revitalize local communities through art. In order to make the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale even more community-based, we will explore new possibilities for the region and art, meet the artists who will lead the future, and create new collaborations. The Museum on Echigo-Tsumari (MonET) plans to organize and hold a series of long-term exhibitions starting in 2023.

Kitagawa Fram  (General Director of Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale)

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Vol.7 Miyake Kan "Neutral Person"

I believe that snow sculptures have the power to unite people with different feelings like a family because they are colorless.
Miyake, the artist of this exhibition, visited Tokamachi for the first time on the day of the Snow Festival. He felt that the snow sculptures, illuminated by the darkness of the night, were somehow divine, like a ”double image of the sacred and the profane,” and he image the snow sculpture making process s such.

While making art, he also worked as a home helper for the severely physically handicapped, and as he entered into the daily lives of various families in the field of care, he came to believe that being “colorless and transparent,” like snow, without its own colors, could play a role in connecting others.
The motifs he uses are mainly rooted in life itself, such as family and physical care. The “colorless people,” which is also the title of this exhibition, are in a pure and neutral position, capable of being dyed in any color. It is the life of the people who became the motif of these works, and can also be seen as his figure in the field of caregiving.

In this exhibition, His first attempt at a series of colorless reliefs will be exhibited along with “There Will Be Blue Sky,” a huge, colorful mural over 4 meters in length that won the grand prize of the Taro Okamoto Award in 2016.
In Tokamachi in winter, which transforms into a colorless world, please come and see the contrast with his past works in extreme colors.

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Exhibition Outline

【period】Jan 25 ,2025 – Mar 23, 2025 / Closed on Tue ＆ Wed except holiday
【time】10:00～17:00（30 minutes before last entry）
【Admission Fee】 Adults 1,200 yen / Children 600 yen or common ticket for “Echigo-Tsumari Winter 2025”.
*include admission to Museum on Echigo-Tsumari MonET permanent exhibition and special exhibitions.

Related event: Let's make a face sculpture of someone close to you!

In this workshop, participants will work with the artist to create small face sculptures.
Using their own faces and those of their companions as models, the participants will sculpt their own faces and those of their companions by heaping paper clay onto shaved foam blocks and arranging them in the hall, starting with the face sculptures that they have finished making.

With the spread of cell phones and the use of masks in everyday life, we have fewer opportunities these days to gaze at the faces of people close to us. If you take the time to observe their faces while sculpting them, you may encounter a side of them you never knew existed. Please look forward to seeing more and more face sculptures being created day by day!

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