Mukai Eriko creates performances based on motifs of invisible systems such as livestock slaughter, oil drilling, government bond mechanisms, and water vapor circulation. She considers the state in which the materials most strongly display their materiality as “sculpture,” and she transforms the mechanisms of the social and natural phenomena that serve as her subjects into life-sized devices that she then sets in motion. In doing so, she places the emphasis on showing the “material physicality” that is expressed through the performance rather than on “human physicality.”

Sumi Memorial Hall is the sole remaining building by architect Tange Kenzo in Aichi Prefecture. After many twists and turns this building was completed in 1957. The pillars and walls are bare concrete, and the exposed woodgrain and knots left by the formwork give the building a strong materiality. In the courtyard of this modernist architecture, Mukai presents a performance based on her research on Bisai City (now part of Ichinomiya City), which flourished thanks to its spinning and wool textile industries. In addition, the process for making wool was broken into several elements, and a record of the manipulation of the “material physicality” that has taken place is exhibited along with the highly abstract device. Traversing physical sensation and conjecture about symbolic acts, the artist’s actions eventually give form to an image that attains the intended objective. Although it is keeping with the history of the Aichi Triennale, where contemporary art and performing arts coexist, this can be considered an organic practice that is not bound by either domain or frame.

Mukai’s recent exhibitions include the 300/500000 (1942) solo exhibition at the Hiroshima Art Center (2021, Japan), Arts and Routes at the Akita Museum of Modern Art (2020, Japan), Impurity/Immunity at the Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo (2017, Japan), and New Rube Goldberg Machine at KAYOKOYUKI and Komagome Soko (2016, Tokyo, Japan).

Selected Works & Awards

2022

59th Venice Biennale, Italy

2021

300/500000 (1942) (solo), Hiroshima Art Center, Japan

2020

Arts and Routes, Akita Museum of Modern Art, Japan

2017

Impurity/Immunity, Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo, Japan

2016

New Rube Goldberg Machine, KAYOKOYUKI/Komagome Soko, Tokyo, Japan

Exhibition

• Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2022
• approach 13.0, 2022
• Photo: ToLoLo studio