2008-kota-ezawa | Gandy Gallery

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Kota Ezawa

Bratislava

Lyam

Exhibition: December 8, 2007 - February 5, 2008

LYAM by Kota Ezawa is a translation of Alain Resnais' 1961 film "Last Year At Marienbad" into the format of a digital animation. Omitting the narrative elements of the film, the animation focuses on scenes devoid of actor movement. Resnais' cinematography is transformed into a series of subtle shifts between abstracted figures and architectural spaces. In this multitude of reductions, LYAM offers a new look at this film-historic document.

IKEA, 2007

New Lightboxes

In his book "The System of Objects" the French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard claims that real furniture ceased to exist and that all we are looking for today in furniture stores is solutions to our life's problems. In front of this background, my new drawings try to decipher the Spring 2007 IKEA catalog as an archive of contemporary problems and their proposed solutions. The drawings further imagine the interiors depicted devoid of their advertisement function as theater stages for the drama of contemporary life.

Kota Ezawa, November 2007

Ezawa was born in Germany, where he began his undergraduate studies at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf with Nam Jun Paik and Nan Hoover before relocating to the Bay Area. His work has been showcased in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara, CA (2018); SITE Santa Fe, NM (2017); Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA (2017); Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA (2015); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2013); Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada (2012); St. Louis Art Museum, MO (2008); and group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2019, 2006); Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2017); Queensland Art Gallery | Gallrey of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2017); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA (2016, 2011, 2010, 2007); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C (2013, 2008); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2012, 2008); and Art Institute of Chicago, IL (2007); among many others.
Ezawa received a SECA Art Award in 2006 and a Eureka Fellowship in 2010. His work has been acquired by leading institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Musée D’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Canada; and Baltimore Museum of Art, MD. He has been the subject of several monographic publications, including The Crime of Art (2017) and The History of Photography Remix (2006).