PICKUP ARTISTS

Tomoko Sawada

“ ID400 ”

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2000Excellence Award

ARTIST STATEMENT

ID400

I was bound by an inferiority complex. When I started to take pictures, I loved my image taken in photos, which looked attractive and cute. I could make myself look like a model or an actress in pictures. As I looked at my pictures again and again, the gap between my real image and my image in a picture widened. In other words, my appearance could be changed easily, but my personality did not change. An ID picture proves the identity or the existence of a person in the picture. That is, even if someone does not exist in this world, if he or she appears in an ID picture, that person can prove his or her existence. One’s personality is said to show in one’s appearance. However, even if one’s appearance changes, the essence does not change. Such a contradiction motivated me to create my work. Anyone in these ID pictures could be myself. The camera for ID pictures, that is my studio, stands inside the parking lot located along the Kobe Subway. As if it were made specially for me, there was a restroom in front of the studio. There, I continued to disguise myself as many different persons as possible, ten to twenty different characters, by wearing the clothes I brought, until the last train passed on the railway. Since it was a public restroom, other people came to use it. My works are in monochrome, so it is not so noticeable, but my make-up made me look unusual. Once a little girl came in and she froze the moment she saw me. Also, a young woman came in and instantly rushed out as if she saw something she should not have seen. I scared away many people. A guard at the parking lot was suspicious of me, and I was afraid he would report me to the police. Let me apologize to the people I encountered while photographing there.

Selecting judge: Tadanori Yokoo

This work shows various phases of the self, and they seem to have pluralized and multiplied. That simply surprises me. Perhaps I, as a man, feel sure that women are more expressive than men. Artistic expressions or expressions of paintings partly involve venting one’s feelings. What makes this work most interesting and impressive, is her conceptual approach to photography, while adding intuitive, emotional, and physiological elements to keep the work from looking stiff. If it were a male artist, the result would have been different. After all, women are energetic and strong.

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PROFILE

Tomoko Sawada

1977 Born in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
2000 Received an Excellence Award at the 21st New Cosmos of Photography (selected by Tadanori yokoo) and won the Special Prize at the New Cosmos of Photography 2000 Exhibition
2004 29th Kimura Ihei Memorial Photography Award
The Twentieth Annual ICP Infinity [young photographer prize]
Hyogo Arts Promotion Award
2008 The Higashikawa prize [New Photographer]

Selected Solo Exhibition

2015 [FACIAL SIGNATURE] MEM / Tokyo
[My Faces] Pace/MacGill Gallery / New York / USA
2013 [Sign] Rose Gallery / Santa Monica / USA
[Sign] MEM / Tokyo
2008 [IDENTITATS] Fundacio Joan Miro / Barcelona / Spain
2006 [MASQUERADE] KPO KIRIN Plaza / Osaka
[Early Days] MEM / Osaka
2004 [Desire to Mimic] MAK / Vienna / Austria
2003 [Two Photographic Series] ZABRISKIE GALLERY / New York / USA
2002 [cover] SUMISO/ Osaka

Selected Group Exhibition

2017 [Multiple Future - Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions] TOP Museum / Tokyo
2016 [Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now] San Fancisco Museum of Modern Art / San Francisco / USA
2015 [The Younger Generation: Contemporary Japanese Photography] The Getty / Los angels / USA
2013 [13th edition, Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal] MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) / Montreal / Canada
2012 [Factory Direct:Pittsburgh] Andy Warhol Museum / Pittsburgh / USA
2009 [Kobe Biennale, LINK – Flexible Deviation] Hyogo prefectural museum / Hyogo
2008 [on your body] Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography / Tokyo
2005 [MOT annual 2005 life actually] MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO / Tokyo
[AICHI EXPO 2005 Art Program “DIVERSE WAYS OF HAPPINESS”] Spiral / Tokyo
2003 [KEEP IN TOUCH-POSITIONS IN JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY] CAMERA AUSTRIA / Graz / Austria
2000 [New Cosmos of Photography] Modapolitica / Tokyo
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2000Excellence Award

Tomoko Sawada

ID400

ID400 © Tomoko Sawada, courtesy MEM, Tokyo
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