Supernatural Artificial

Jul. 17—Aug. 29, 2004

• Jul. 17—Aug. 29, 2004
• Closed Monday(if Monday is a national holiday or a substitute holiday, it is the next day)
• Admission：Adults ￥600／College Students ￥500／High School and Junior High School Students,Over 65 ￥300

Photography was invented to capture a visual image of the real world and for decades the ‘truth’ of the photographic image was touted as one of its wondrous qualities. The works in this exhibition play with the capacity of photography to do exactly the opposite: to create images glorying in the fictional, the slippery, the mysterious, the ghostly and the fake. As a result our vision of the world is expanded, distorted, questioned, illuminated, and played with. By their very nature the works in the exhibition move us to reconsider the nature of our surroundings.

All the works are by Australian artists, but there are few clues to this. Darren Siwes’ images of overlaid spirit figures on the landscape, which do refer to the history of Aboriginal Australians, is perhaps the only located work in the exhibition, but even this is ambiguous. Rather, the works refer to issues and symbols easily understood across cultures. The organisers hope that viewers will see new work that is provocative and memorable.

That being said, this is the first time that a large exhibition of work from Australia has been shown at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

Lineage of the Divine 9”2002-4／Monica Tichacek／Courtesy of the artist andKaren Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne

“ Mini-Golf, Lake Hume ”2001／Anne Zahalka／Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne