KÜNSTLERHAUS

BETHANIEN

Künstler*innen

Mai Yamashita + Naoto Kobayashi

Japan

Mai Yamashita + Naoto Kobayashi are a Japanese artist couple and started to work together in 2000. After graduating from the Tokyo University of the Arts they moved to Germany, where they have been living and working since.Their mostly performative works are condensations of everyday life, whose simple structure and deliberately absurd methodology allow them to complete seemingly impossible ‘tasks’.

In “Candy” (2005), for instance, the artists licked a huge ball of candy every day over a period of weeks or months until it had been reduced to normal size. In “Infinity” (2006) the duo is seen jogging day after day over a ‘course’ in the shape of the sign for infinity (?), which thus slowly inscribes itself on the grass. The artist’s seriousness in performing these seemingly purposeless tasks is infused with a distinct sense of humour, while making viewers reconsider the many meaningless rituals that dictate their daily lives.

Yamashita + Kobayashi’s work has been exhibited among others at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo (MARCO).

STAY
01.06.2010 – 31.05.2011