BE THEREHMMT? - a selectionPresented by MIYAKO YOSHINAGA art prospects April 6, 2006- May 13, 2006Reception: April 6, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pmEmi Anrakuji
In HMMT? (an acronym for the phrase “How Many Miles To?”), the artist’s first major photography series, Anrakuji represents herself as a alchemist of images and a catalyst for daydreams and desires. The vignettes of jigsaw puzzlelike shots of herself and others blur the boundaries between documentary and staged photography. The artist, posing naked, clothed, or partially dressed, takes a uniquely obsessive interest in her own body. Her legs, arms, hands, toes, lips and hair create arresting compositions and erotic ambience. When she focuses on the opposite sex, it results in surprising elaborations on the image of the phallus. One, created with a handmade kaleidoscope attached to her camera lens, evokes a kind of mandala. Denying a feminist interpretation, Anrakuji says her work sincerely tries to capture the sublime and magical power of the phallus itself. After graduating from art school in Tokyo in the mid-1980s, Anrakuji (b. 1963) suffered a cerebral tumor that prevented her from making art for more than a decade. During her gradual recovery, she began to produce block prints, then photographs. Anrakuji takes advantage of a variety of media techniques (such as printmaking) to enhance her photography. Emi Anrakuji is this year’s winner of the New Photographer Award at the Higashikawa Photography Prize (Japan). Other photography awards she has won include International Photography Award’s Fine Art Phogography of the Year, Fine Art Abstract First Prize (USA), Arbion Art Museum Photography Competition, Grand Prize and Yoshikazu Ueno Photography Award, Grand Prize (Japan). Her work is in the collection of several important public and private collections. Anrakuji’s first color monograph will be published later this year by Nazraeli Press. An advance galley of this publication will be on display at the exhibition. For more information, please contact info@myartprospects.com or 212 268 7132.
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