Keiichi Ikemizu “I Became an Elephant This Summer”

Art Area B1

This event has ended.

Keiichi Ikemizu (born in Osaka in 1937) is a contemporary artist who has been active, primarily in the Kansai region, since the early 1960s. In his work Ikemizu seriously considers animals, which live in the artificial environment of zoos, as individuals living much like we do. His previous works have works and projects made frequent use of animal motifs such as elephants, camels, and gorillas. In his notable early work “Homosapiens” (1965), Ikemizu staged a performance in which he locked himself inside an iron cage in a dry bed of the Nagara River. Ikemizu’ s actions, using his body in natural settings in the suburbs, urged viewers to fundamentally reexamine the relationship between nature and human beings beginning with familiar places. Also known as one of the core members of “Play,” a group that has been active since 1967, Ikemizu helped plan “Voyage Happening in an Egg” (1968), in which a huge egg-shaped object was released into the Kuroshio Current offshore from Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture.

This exhibition at Art Area B1 marks the first time in 22 years (since “Blue Crossing” held in Nakatsu in 1993) that Ikemizu is presenting his work in Osaka. It provides viewers with an opportunity to see three works using elephants as a motif, alongside a group of photographs the artist produced in 2013. Forty-five years have passed since Ikemizu made his first elephant-related work in 1969. What has happened to the elephants and the artist in the interim?