Miwa Yanagi - KYOBAI, Japanese Art and Culture London Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Galerie Almine Rech, Paris

  • Catalogue Essay

    The Elevator Girls series was about myself as well as other Japanese women. When I started the series, I was working as a teacher after graduating from university. Back then, I strongly felt that I was just playing a role in a standardized society, having a particular occupation in a particular setting. I did not work as an elevator girl literally, but the idea resonated in me in a symbolic way. ... It represented myself and my circumstances. A young woman who operates an elevator works in a narrow, box-like space, which elevator girls call “the basket. ” They have to repeat the same gesture over and over all day. I felt that the Elevator Girls series was very cynical in the beginning when I started it as a performance, not as photography. I had a woman sit still in the same posture smiling in a narrow space wearing an elevator girl's uniform. I also had women keep sitting or smiling in a real-size elevator hall which I created…But, my work was not meant to be all negative because creating something negative is not my interest.Through my work, I also wanted to express the feeling of intoxication.
    MiwaYanagai speaking at Yanagi Studio, Kyoto, Japan, 19 August, 2001, Journal of Contemporary Art, Inc.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, SWITZERLAND

239

Elevator girl house 3F

1998

Colour coupler print, Diasec mounted.

79.4 x 106 cm. (31 2/8 x 41 6/8 in).

Signed and numbered 5/15 in ink on an artist's label affixed to the reverse of the frame.

Estimate
£4,000 - 6,000 

Sold for £5,000

KYOBAI, Japanese Art and Culture

3 Apr 2008, 6pm
London