A solo exhibition at White Rainbow by the renowned artist collective Chim↑Pom (formed 2005, Tokyo, Japan). Comprising Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi, Ellie, Masataka Okada, Motomu Inaoka, and Toshinori Mizuno, Chim↑Pom’s work includes interventions through performance, video, painting, installation, curating and organising events. Sharp social critique underpins the group’s work, and the collective is unafraid to cause controversy in the service of their message. As Christopher Y. Lew, Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum, New York, has stated: ‘the group negotiates a difficult line – they do not make the direct assertions of activists but rather offer an ambiguous voice that is both complicit and critical. Why Open? testifies to the group’s openness to the world around them – in their 13 years as a collective, Chim↑Pom have continually placed themselves in complex situations and contested territories, in order to ask those difficult questions that others might not. The accompanying exhibition catalogue on Chim↑Pom includes a newly commissioned essay by writer Joseph Constable, interviews with Ryuta Ushiro, Yasutaka Hayashi and Hsiao-Yu Lin, and installation photographs.
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