photo: KIOKU Keizo
Food Rental
| Artist | SASAMOTO Aki |
|---|---|
| Year | 2015 |
| Material/ Technique | mixed media, video |
| Size/ Duration | dimensions variable |
| Copyright Notice | © SASAMOTO Aki |
| Year of acquisition/ donation | 2018 |
| Description | Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1980. Lives and works in New York, USA. Sasamoto Aki dropped out of high school in Japan, and went on to study dance, sculpture and mathematics in the UK and US. After receiving her BA from Wesleyan University, in 2007 she earned her MFA at Columbia University. In her work, she analyses and develops human actions and situations she herself has observed in daily life, delving beneath the surface. She is known for her unique style of staging performances while speaking in spaces filled with objects she modifies in peculiar ways that are finally presented as installation works. In these spaces where the traces of her actions remain, audiences are able to imagine, interpret and develop into narratives the time that has preceded. Stemming from an idea gleaned at a food court with stands selling different types of cuisine, "Food Rental" is a device enabling Sasamoto herself to take orders from “customers” based on a menu at a wooden food cart and giving ad-lib performances in response. Debuting in New York in 2015, ＜Food Rental＞ has also been performed in Tokyo and Kanazawa. Viewers can watch footage of these performances on a video screen next to the cart. Many of the evocative menu items, which include “Cliché of Romance,” “Airport Bathroom” and “Diseases with Complications,” concern mental activity associated with anxiety stemming from human self-scrutiny in contemporary society and the impulse to seek answers, with Sasamoto offering performances using various foodstuffs and equipment as if preparing food at a stall. The food cart absent the artist and the video recordings awaken in people a latent feeling of exhaustion while also arousing the impulsive belief that there may be answers. |
NOTES
This Collection Data page contains the works and materials in the collection of 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, as of April 1, 2018.
Artists are listed alphabetically by artist’s surname.
Works and materials by the same artists are listed according to the date of the work in principle.
Works whose dates are unidentified are listed at the end of each item. Some works are not listed according to the date of work due to their relations.
The data of works and materials are listed in order of title, production year, material/technique/form, dimensions, donor’s name, copyright holder and credit for photograph.
Dimensions are given by height (H) x width (W) in centimeters for plane work, and height (H) x width (W) x depth (D) in cm for 3-D work. Diameter (Ø) is used for circular work.
For the name of country or city, the name currently used in English is listed in principle.