Kyoko Michishita Part 1
Kyoko Michishita, Women's Liberation is Human Liberation, 1974. Courtesy of Vtape & Kyoko Michishita.
We are thrilled to partner with curator Jesse Cumming and VTape to present the work of artist, writer, and translator Kyoko Michishita from November through January. With grant support from Japan Foundation New York, we are able to present English subtitled versions of Michishita’s Video Portraits – Men series in November and December in the Members Monthly Viewing. In January, Jesse Cumming will present an online screening program.
The program begins with four selections from Michishita’s 1982 project Video Portraits - Men, in which she selected and interviewed a number of Japanese cultural figures she identified for their humanity and refutation of machismo. The portraits are followed by a pairing of Michishita’s In My Hometown trilogy and Being Women in Japan: Living with the Ocean, two early documentary works set and shot in Kiritappu that engage with questions of family, the environment, and belonging.
This program is curated by Jesse Cumming, with restorations provided by Vtape. Kyoko Michishita's videos and films are distributed by Vtape; please contact distribution@vtape.org for more information.
November Monthly Members’ Viewing
Video Portraits - Men: Ryoichi Enomoto (1982)
Video Portraits - Men: Issey Miyake (1982)
December Monthly Members’ Viewing
Video Portraits - Men: Maki Ishii (1982)
Video Portraits - Men: Shuntaro Tanikawa (1982)
January Online Screening
In my Hometown I-III (1976)
Being Women in Japan: Living with the Ocean (1974)
The programs will be available for viewing on CCJ’s viewing platform.
Video Portraits - Men: Ryoichi Enomoto (1982). Courtesy of Vtape & Kyoko Michishita.
Video Portraits - Men: Ryoichi Enomoto (1982)
A playful portrait of designer Ryoichi Enomato, a former collaborator of the Shuji Terayama and the Tenjō Sajiki theater troupe. Kyoko Michishita: “…when I asked Enomoto, the king of parody, to let me film him at the Japan Graphic Exhibition, an event that has become the gateway to success for commercial artists, he gracefully took his clothes off for me. But he asked to wear sunglasses to hide his embarrassment.”
複本了老 グラフィックデザイナー。 このパロディの王様を、いまやコマ ーシャル・アーテイストの登竜門とされる日本グラフィック展の会場で撮影をお願いしたら、いさぎ良く脱いでくれた。 でも恥しいか ら、サングラスをかけさせてくださ いと彼はいった。
Video Portraits - Men: Issey Miyake (1982). Courtesy of Vtape & Kyoko Michishita.
Video Portraits - Men: Issey Miyake (1982)
An intimate and loving interview with the late fashion designer Miyake in his Tokyo apartment, alongside glimpses of his groundbreaking creations. In his own words, "When I work, I don't think I'm a man or a Japanese."
三宅一生 ファッション・デザイナー。 「仕事をする時に、ぼくが男だとか 日本人だとか考えませんね」と言った国際人。そして彼が最も強く望むことは「さわやかな人にな りたい。」
THIS PROGRAM IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED, IN PART, BY JAPAN FOUNDATION NEW YORK.
Kyoko Michishita is a Japanese artist, writer, and translator based in Tokyo. With her belief in pacifism, feminism and art, she has been writing and translating books and articles for almost four decades. Born in Kholmsk, Sakhalin in 1942, she and her family escaped to Hokkaido, Japan the year after the end of World War II. She studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1967. From 1970 through 1997 she served as the Arts Program Specialist of the Tokyo American Center, where she presented work by Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and many others. [Photo credit: Laurie Toby Edison from Women of Japan]
Jesse Cumming (he/him) is a curator, writer, and researcher. He has served as a Programmer with Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and as a Programming Associate with the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, in addition to Consulting roles with the Berlinale Forum and Open City Documentary Festival. In 2016 he developed Vertical Features, a Toronto screening series dedicated to non-fiction film and video. He has curated, co-curated, and presented programs with The Museum of Modern Art, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Tallinn Photomonth Biennal, Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Anthology Film Archives, the Volksbühne Berlin, La Cinémathèque québécoise, VIVO Media Arts, and more. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, The Brooklyn Rail, MUBI Notebook, Filmmaker Magazine, Hyperallergic, Canadian Art, Another Gaze, C Magazine, Berlin Art Link, and more. He was a founding collective member of MICE Magazine, a publication dedicated to Moving Image Culture, Etc., and formerly served on the steering committee of the Toronto Film & Media Seminar. He is currently a Media Lecturer with Ryerson University’s Cairo Campus.
Vtape is a vibrant distribution organization that represents an international collection of contemporary and historical video art and media works by artists. We make this collection accessible to curators and programmers, educators, scholars and public audiences worldwide. In addition to providing a distribution framework for established and emerging artists, Vtape is committed to establishing video art preservation and exhibition standards, and strives to support hybrid practices in an increasingly complex technical milieu. Kyoko Michishita's videos and films are distributed by Vtape; please contact distribution@vtape.org for more information.