Miwa Yanagi

Miwa Yanagi (やなぎみわ, Yanagi Miwa^?) is a Japanese photographic artist.

Life and works

Miwa Yanagi was born in 1967 Kobe City, Japan. She completed her postgraduate course work at the Kyoto City University of Arts (Yanagi). Miwa Yanagi is known mainly as a photographer and video artist. Miwa Yanagi creates an elaborate, thoroughly thought out, and often costly staged event using female models ranging in different ages. These female models may display ages quite different from their own in the photos. After the picture or video is taken, the image may or not be altered by a computer. If the computer is used, then a massive amount of time is spent working on the photo to alter the image in strange ways ( Bergquist ). The large amount of time spent working on the photo also insures that the final piece looks as realistic as possible, and the alterations that are merged with the actual images fit perfectly. The end result is a surrealistic image of everyday life.

Miwa Yanagi was influenced by a teacher in high school who was passionate for his art work. From seeing how passionate he was about his work, she decided to go into art and on to a university. Miwa Yanagi's big break came when she was nominated to be in an exhibition in Germany in 1996 at the Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. It was here that Miwa Yanagi works were exhibited along with other famous artists like Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall. This gave her major opportunity over other Japanese artists because of the international exposure to a commercial art market. In Japan it is hard to be a contemporary modern artist. Many Japanese artists don't know how to sell their art or be financially successful. Information on how to be a contemporary artist in Japan is hard to come by. Not because there are not enough of them but because of a lack of a buyers market and no commercial galleries as seen in other countries like in American or Europe's. Because of lack of a contemporary art market in Japan and her success in Germany in 1996 she decided to display her work overseas (Wakasa ). Many of her photographs have models from Japan. In her later works however the some models have mixed ethnicities. Miwa Yanagi currently works and live in Kyoto, Japan.

In 1993 Miwa Yanagi held her first solo exhibition, and since 1996 her work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows throughout Europe and the United States ( anonymous 2). Some of her solo shows include her first show in 1993, in an exhibition in Art Space Niji, Kyoto, then later in the Deutsche Guggenheim and Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and Harass Museum of Artin 2005, the Chelsea Art Museum in 2007, and most recently the The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in 2008 ( Yanagi). Some group exhibitions included are “ART NOW ’94” Hyoho Prefectural Museum of Modern art, Hyogo 1994, Future recollections” Kyoto Municipal Museum of art , Kyoto, “Freeze” Espaço Cultural Sérgio Porto, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2000, “Complicity, Biennale de Lyon 2001 Prelude to 2003” Lyon France 2001,and 2008 “Still Motion:liquid painting” Mie Prefectural Art museum ( The National Museum of Art Osake, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography) “Tsubaki Kai Ten” Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo ( Yanagi).

Prizes

Miwa Yanagi has won are, first prizes in1998 First Prize: Leopold Godowsky Jr. Color Photography Award (Photographic Resource Center at Boston University), 1999 VOCA Prize, The Vision of Contemporary Art ’99 (The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo) Kyoto City Artist Prize

Higashikawa Prize (Higashikawa, Hokkaido), 2000 Sakuya-Konohana Prize (Osaka City), 2001 Kyoto Prefectural Artist Prize, 2004 Hyogo Prefectural Artist Prize, and the 2006 Takashimaya Art Prize ( Yanagi).

Miwa Yanagi most well known body of works are the series known as Elevator Girls, My Grandmother, and Fairy Tale. Miwa Yanagi first series of works known as Elevator Girls, is also her most well known. These art pieces received international attention. With the Elevator girls series, Miwa Yanagi focuses on themes of everyday life, self identity, architecture, and employment in the world of elevator girls who work in Japanese department stores ( Bergquist). Elevator Girls first started as performance piece early in her career. The piece was to represent and reflect on what Miwa Yanagi was going through in her life at this time. The performance was about a young girl who works in a narrow box, who has to repeat the same task over and over again, day after day (Wakasa ). This idea of being trapped and repeating the same thing every day was an aspect of Miwa Yanagi life which fueled the conception of the work. The later photographs of Elevator Girls show women who are dressed in a similar fashion and are often seen as having very little emotion. The switch from performance art to photography was because Miwa Yanagi wanted 100 percent control in what was going on (Wakasa). These young models who are posing are all physically similar in body composition ( anonymous). The way that they are posed is very important. It shows that they are restricted on what they can do and where they can go, much like restrictions are placed on women culturally. Elevator Girls is seen as playing a role in a standardized society. In the photos these elevator girls stare at architectural design or consumer goods. The staring represents the societies obsession with consumer goods ( Wakasa).

The My Grandmother series was next in line and focuses on how young girls from between 14 and 20 years old perceive themselves. Miwa Yanagi conducted a series of interviews aimed at young girls ask what they thought there life would be like in 50 years. If Yanagi liked the answer and felt inspired to work with it the interview was then selected to be photographed with models (Bergquist). Some of these models came from the Elevator Girls series ( Wakasa). The models for her work comes from different sources. Yanagi has an address in the magazine Ryukou Tushin where her art works are usually printed and seen by the public. She also gets help from friends and gets emails from models who want to be part of her work. These emails come mainly from people who attended lectures Miwa Yanagi often gives at different universities ( Wakasa).The girls who were interviewed for My Grandmother were asked what they think their life will be like 50 years from now. During the interview process Miwa Yanagi eliminates those she feels that are too young to have any real life experience. She believes that if they are too young they truly cannot express what they want from life. Those who are seen to have enough life experience are accepted. Yanagi believes that younger people puts restrictions on what they can do. When the age restriction is released, women are more free to express their wishes and desires. The more restricted a young girl feels today closely relates to the amount of freedom she feels 50 years from now ( Wakasa ). After the interview is accepted, the concept drawings based are created. After the drawings are made Miwa Yanagi goes to photograph the scene she has created in her head and put on paper. The photographs are taken with a high degree of technical ability and high production value in which the future world imagined by the interviewed girls is then turned into a picture. After the photographs are taken then it is sent to a long session at the computer for digital altering. The young girls idea and the surreal dream of Yanagi is then merged into one. Each photo has its distinct likeness. You can see emotions ranging from sad to pessimistic or funny. For example, a girl named Mie imagines in 50 years that her life be of loneliness, looking around a field of empty landscapes during a time of an apocalyptic cataclysm. In another example A woman known as Yuka, believes she will be living somewhere on the U.S. Coast without a care in the world and a playboy for a lover (Bergquist ). Along with each photo comes a poetic verse based on the interviews and the photos.

In Miwa Yanagi third most popular series known as Fairy Tales, the photographer focuses on stories in which the main characters are usually simultaneously both old and young and deals with the relationships between the two ages. The stories are based on the European version of fairy tales told by the Brothers Grimm. The European version stories are often more gruesome and horrible than the watered down version told to children. This gruesome quality appealed to Miwa Yanagi and helped her show the difference of youth and old age. She first released the series in 2005 at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and Ohara Museum of Art ( Yanagi). They are presented in a large format of black-and-white photos. Miwa Yanagi abandons her computer in this instance for more traditional methods. Miwa Yanagi also uses models other than Japanese in this work. Young mixed raced girls are covered wearing wigs, makeup, and masks made of latex to make themselves look like old, witch like, hags. What is left is a strange unresolved combination of an old woman, but with youthful limbs and appendages coming out from the body. This confuses the distinction between old and young. For example, in the 2005 Snow White, a young girl can be seen looking into the mirror, but instead of a beautiful young lady looking back at her, she sees an old unattractive old lady. In a second example, her work known as Gretel, a young girls can be seen gnawing on the finger of an unseen witch. This leaves the viewer questioning who exactly the young girl on whether she is the captor or the witch (Conti ). This series is a complete opposite of what Elevator Girls was. In Elevator Girls the models are shown as pretty, have little emotion and all similar. In Fairy Tales the models are seen as old and different and also gruesome. The scenes are darker, less colorful and sometimes frightening.

In Miwa Yanagi's video art work known as Suna Ona she show the relationship between a child and her grandmother. The grandmother tells the granddaughter of her meeting with a sand woman as a child. It is meant to be a tale of transformation and the supernatural world (Conti ). Her video work is a recent addition to an already impressive portfolio. In other videos she shows uniformed women who change their surrounding with the wave of their hand ( Bergquist ).

Although known more for the two more popular mediums, photography and video, she has also done performance pieces. These performance pieces were done early in her career before Miwa Yanagi switched to photography. The pieces main theme were concentrated more on what she was going through as a young woman in Japan. Elevator Girls was originally a performance piece. Miwa Yanagi also did another performance piece in which she created a female museum guide to give actual tours. She hired someone who was to show contemporary art in a museum to visitors as a real guide would. Yanagi gave them a script on what to say and to tell them what points during the tour that they were supposed to perform certain gestures. The hired guide was totally believable in this performance. The tour guide wear the same uniformed as regular tour guides and spoke in the same manner. It was observed that the people were more interested in the tour guide than the actual art work. Some people even left the museum after the guide finished speaking. In Miwa Yanagi's view the performance is about the feeling of pleasure and the experience. It was more about the performance by the guide than actual artwork in the museum. Miwa Yanagi's current body of work now mainly consists of themes on the lives of women and how they are perceived in the modern world. Here she looks on how women are treated and viewed by society and also how women culturally view themselves (Wakasa ).

Awards

• 1998
  • First Prize: Leopold Godowsky Jr. Color Photography Award (Photographic Resource Center at Boston University)
• 1999
  • VOCA Prize, The Vision of Contemporary Art ’99 (the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo)
  • Kyoto City Artist Prize
  • Higashikawa Prize - New Photographer Prize (Higashikawa, Hokkaido)
• 2000
  • Sakuya-Konohana Prize (Osaka City)
• 2001
  • Kyoto Prefectural Artist Prize
• 2004
  • Hyogo Prefectural Artist Prize
• 2006
  • Takashimaya Art Prize

References

anonymous. "Miwa Yanagi—Deutsche Bank Collection." Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. April 2009. <http://www.mfah.org/exhibition.asp?

par1=1&par2=1&par3=530&par4=1&par5=1&par6=1&par7=&lgc=4&eid=&currentPage=>.

anonymous 2. "Miwa Yanagi." The Japan foundation. 2008. The Japan Foundation. April 2009.

<http://www.jpf.go.jp/venezia-biennale/art/e/53/03.html>.

Bergquist,Karin . "Yanagi Miwa." culturebase.net. 21 July 2003. April 2009.

<http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?1314>.

Conti, Andrew. "miwa yanagi." Metropolis. April 2009.

<http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/597/art.asp>.

Wakasa ,Mako . "miwa yanagi." Journal of contemporary art. Journal of Contemporary Art,

Inc. April 2009. < http://www.jca-online.com/yanagi.html>.

Yanagi, Miwa. "Miwa Yanagi." Miwa Yanagi. 2009. April 2009.

<http://www.yanagimiwa.net>.

External links

• Yanagi's site
• "Japanese Pavilion, The 53rd Venice Biennale 2009: Outline of the Japanese Participation". Japan Foundation.

Persondata
Name	Yanagi, Miwa
Alternative names
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Date of birth	1967
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death