morihiro wada

Morihiro Wada (1947-2007) was born in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture in 1947. He graduated from Tama Art University, Department of Painting, Oil Painting Course in 1973. He met the Canadian video artist, Michael Goldberg in 1971, and began making video works and participating in the collective Video Hiroba. In the 1970s, he produced single channel video and many conceptual works that incorporated video into his performance. His film and video work explores phenomenological structures. He continued to produce works in various ways of expression such as video, photograph, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, among others.

Solo presentations include series exhibitions held almost every year from 1971 through 2001, including The Revelations About Nature, Introduction on Methods from Recognition, Aplicación, The Recognition Construction, Hyojyutsu, and others. Major exhibitions include The 6th Japan Art Festival (1971, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and others), Do It Yourself Kit (1972, Ginza Sony Building, Tokyo), Tokyo-New York Video Express (1974, Tenjo-Sajiki-Kan, Tokyo), Video Art (1975, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago), Artists Today (1979, Yokohama Civic Art Gallery, Kanagawa), Operation Equinox (1981, Centre Pompidou, Paris), The New Video Japan (1986, The Museum of Modern Art, New York), Introduction to Art History: Films by Contemporary Japanese Artists (1988, Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo), Encountering the Others: The Kassel International Art Exhibition (1992, various sites,Hann. Münden and Kassel), Video-New World(1993, O Art Museum, Tokyo), and Exhibition Commemorating Yoshiaki Tono: Water Always Flows Together (2006, Gallery Tom, Tokyo). In 2009, his retrospective exhibition, Morihiro Wada: The Trajectory of Artist Who Ran Through 1967-2006 was held at Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery.

Since then, exhibitions include Vital Signals – Early Japanese and American Video Art (2009-2010, touring exhibition to Japan Society, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Yokohama Museum of Art; The National Museum of Art, Osaka and other locations), Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2015 (2015, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo) MAM Research 004: Video Hiroba Reconsidering Experimental Video Groups in the 1970s (2016, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo) Japan Sound Archive―Morihiro Wada <<An Introduction to Methods in Cognition No.Ⅰ Self musical >> 1973 (Art & Space Cococara, Tokyo).

https://archive-morihirowada.wixsite.com/info

和田守弘（1947-2007）

1947年、香川県高松市に生まれる。1973年、多摩美術大学絵画科油画専攻卒業。71年にカナダのヴィデオ作家マイケル・ゴールドバーグと出会ったことをきっかけにヴィデオを用いた作品の制作を始め、「ビデオひろば」に参加した。そうして和田は、1970年代を通してシングルチャンネルのヴィデオや、パフォーマンスを取り込んだヴィデオインスタレーションを多数発表してゆく。和田のフィルムやヴィデオは、知覚の認知構造を探るコンセプチュアルなものであり、それは当時の美術家の問題意識に根ざしていた。ヴィデオ、写真、絵画、ドローイング、彫刻、インスタレーション、パフォーマンスなどさまざまな表現手段で発表を続けた。

個展は、1971年から2001年まで、ほぼ毎年行った。「自然に於ける黙示禄」「認識からの方法序説」「アプリカシオン」「認知構造」「表述」「表基」等のシリーズがある。主なグループ展に「第6回 ジャパン・アート・フェスティバル」（1971年、東京国立近代美術館、東京他）、「Do It Yourself Kit」（1972年、銀座ソニービル、東京）、「Tokyo-New York Video Express」（1974年、天井桟敷館、東京）、「Video Art」（1975年、シカゴ美術館、シカゴ他）、「今日の作家展」（1979年、横浜市民ギャラリー、神奈川）、「エキノックス大作戦」（1981年、ポンピドー・センター、パリ）、「The New Video Japan」（1986年、ニューヨーク近代美術館、ニューヨーク）、「美術史探索学入門―現代美術としての映像表現」（1988年、目黒区美術館、東京）、「他文化との遭遇」（1992年、会場多数、ハン・ミュンデン／カッセル、）、「ビデオ・新たな世界」（1992年、Ｏ美術館、東京）、「水はつねに複数で流れる―東野芳明を偲ぶオマージュ展」（2006年、ギャラリーTOM、東京）。

2009年に回顧展「和田守弘展―走り去った美術家の航跡 1967-2006」（神奈川県民ホールギャラリー）が開催された。

「Vital Signals：日米初期ビデオアート」（2009−2010年、Electronic Arts Intermix (New York), 横浜美術館共催、ジャパン・ソサイティ（ニューヨーク）、国立国際美術館（大阪）他）、「第7回恵比寿映像祭」（2015年、東京都写真美術館、東京）「MAMリサーチ004:ビデオひろばー1970年代の実験的映像グループ再考」(2016年　森美術館、東京)「日本サウンドアーカイヴー和田守弘《認識に於ける方法序説　№ⅠSELF・MUSICAL》1973年」(Art＆Space ここから、東京)

https://archive-morihirowada.wixsite.com/info

Situation / 状況｜1974, 20:10 min, video, b&w, sound
A static image of a rock next to a curb is overlaid with the deformed reflection of light and shadows from pedestrian and vehicular traffic. An alternatively whispy and shrill, irregular slide whistle soundtrack is occasionally punctuated by a male voice saying "this is," culminating in an insistent string of "this is, this is, this is." Once the soundtrack falls silent, the camera begins to haltingly zoom out, revealing the reflection to have been caused by the slick surface of the glossy photo of the curb, and the picture itself to have been one of a series of photos of urban details placed in a grid in an exhibition space. Shot as a ½ open reel video during Wada's 1974 exhibition Application No. IV From the State of Use and Looks...(Dynamic Sorites or Static Base) at Tokiwa Gallery, this work was included in the seminal 1975 touring exhibition Video Art, organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.

The Recognition Construction・Hyojyutsu (Against application or mimesis) / 認知構造・表述｜1975, 20:07 min, video, color, sound

The Recognition Construction №Ⅳ: Recognition Construction in Film / フィルムによる認知構造№Ⅳ ｜1975, 16 min, 16mm, color, silent
Originally shot on 16mm film and presented at Maki Gallery, this work primarily focuses on traffic traveling up and down the major traffic artery Omotesandō in Tokyo. Prefaced by the Wittgenstein quotation included below, the image focuses on the vanishing point—aligning it with the top of the frame in wide shots—and movements of vehicles up and down the boulevard. While the film's first half presents a stationary shot, the second half follows individual cars and motorbikes, zooming in to frame them at a consistent size even as they advance toward and recede from the camera.

The Recognition Construction’75 / 認知構造’75 ｜1975, 22:38 min, video, color, sound
Although this video, originally shot on a U-matic cassette, begins in a studio setting, the action focuses on a short walk through Shibuya. During this walk, Wada swings the camera around to focus on specific details of the surrounding environment. Both in the studio and during the walk, Wada names what he is looking at, first by stating, "I look at the camera" (in the studio), then by aligning his view with that of the camera, naming the details on which his wandering lens lands. This video walk is played back on a monitor (a return to the studio?), recognizable by the desaturated color and tinny quality of the sound despite the camera frame more or less aligning with the monitor. The identifications recorded in the video are repeated by Wada in the studio, causing them to become slightly offset from the camera's movement. As this mediation process repeats several more times, the image quality gradually degrades. At the same time, the identifications of the objects captured by the camera are further offset, creating disjunctures between perception and identification as well as image and language reminiscent of the disconnect between experience and memory.

The Recognition Construction №Ⅷ [Variation Hamaoka Beach 1983] / 認知構造№Ⅷ 浜岡海岸 ｜1983, 22:22 min, video, color, sound

The Recognition Construction №Ⅷ Variation’84 / 認知構造№Ⅷ 変奏’84 ｜1984, 26:28 min, video, color, sound

The Recognition Construction №XIII　Variation’85 / 認知構造№XIII 変奏’85 ｜1985, 15:48 min, video, color, sound
This U-matic video incorporates a number of frequent images from Wada's oeuvre: a camera advancing down a colonnaded pedestrian walkway beneath an elevated train line, the figure of a woman with her back to the camera retreating down a street toward a vanishing point by walking or running, and various seascapes. These scenes are spliced together in seemingly random order, sometimes inserted into each other or reshot through close-ups of video monitors. At times the footage is so heavily mediated and re-mediated that images blur into shadow and light, disappear into CRT phosphor dots, or shift hues and patterns from oversaturation and noise. A soundtrack by Hideki Yoshida accompanies the entire sequence, featuring echoing electronic patterns and long tones interspersed with ambient sounds of traffic and beachfront waves. This work was first screened at the Worldwide Video Festival in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Netherlands, in 1986.