| E · A · S · EOctober 19, 2006- November 18, 2006Reception: October 19, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
M.Y. Art Prospects is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Emi Anrakuji, a Tokyo-based photographer whose work
consists of quietly provocative images of self-indulgence and social taboos.
The gallery walls will be covered with more than 500 intimate and spontaneous shots of the artist herself as well as other subjects. Posing naked clothed, and partially dressed, Anrakuji takes a uniquely obsessive interest in her own body. She reveals her legs, hands, toes, lips, teeth, and hair with subtle provocation. In addition, she captures hedonistic and playful images of the phallus, which, in contrast to feminist polemics, celebrates the sublime power of the organ. Blending styles and emotions, nakedness and elaboration, fragments and stories, the real and the surreal, Anrakuji's work is unsettling in its refusal to conform to established categories. This character of her work bears a strong relationship to her view that life is a continuous cycle of labor and pleasure, much like a Mobius strip. Anrakuji says that her greatest hope is to be able to throw herself into this endless flow.
Emi Anrakuji originally studied oil painting at Musashino University of Art and Music in Tokyo. By her mid 20s, she was diagnosed a cerebral disease that severely curtailed her activities for more than a decade. During her gradual recovery, she took up photography. For a while her audience was only herself and the jurors of public competitions to which she sent her entries. Since 2001, her efforts have earned her several important awards as well as increasing support from the art community. A prolific producer of images, Anrakuji often arranges her work as handmade books, one of which will be presented in this exhibition.
Emi Anrakuji is this year’s winner of the New Photographer Award in the renowned Higashikawa Photography Prize. Other awards include the International Photography Award’s Fine Art Photography of the Year, the Fine Art Abstract First Prize (USA), the Arbion Art Museum Photography Competition, the Grand Prize and Yoshikazu Ueno Photography Award, Grand Prize (Japan). “ANRAKUJI,” the first color monograph published by Nazraeli Press will be available this October. A book-signing event celebrating this publication will be held on Thursday, Nov. 2nd, 6-8pm.
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