Opening: Saturday 7th August 2010 from 5 pm to 12 pm

Exhibition: 8th August to 29th August 2010

Finissage: Sunday 29th August 2010 from 5 pm to 10 pm

The multidisciplinary exhibition To–Be highlights works by 28 artists from Japan and Germany, who research spheres of common ground in the „Being and Becoming“ in both cultures. To–Be is a joint venture based on an open-minded concept by the artists Tatsumi Orimoto and Thomas von Arx. The exhibition is a collective working process between the artists without any instructions from a curator, to create space for developments and conversations reaching beyond the scope of an exhibition. Starting point of this project was a gathering of 19 younger and more experienced artists in the summer of 2009 in Tokyo, who portrayed renowned and emerging positions. The project gains a remarkable dynamic through the conjunction of very differently inspired societies and their individual perceptions of art. Art as a communication-engine is in this sense connecting and moving independent strategies of exchange and relations. This activating process is an essential aspect of the exhibition: creating an artist-driven „open stage“, that allows and develops inspiring collaborations between cultures, the arts, the artists and the audience. For this project the artists from Japan and Germany will get together in Berlin for two weeks in August. Among them internationally established Japanese artists such as Susumu Kinoshita, Masami Kondo, Tatsumi Orimoto, Chieo Senzaki, Tadayuki Shimada, and Mio Shirai. The opening of this exhibition will be celebrated with a program of various performances. Several art works will still be developed throughout the first week of the exhibition. Each morning at 10 o’clock Midori Mitamura will welcome visitors to the “Never Ending Breakfast” (8 – 15 August), which will be the base of the work she creates. Tamaki Kawaguchi will produce her piece “Painting a bee by a bee for 5 days” beginning on 8 August in the courtyard of the museum inside of a glass cube. The artists themself will guide through the exhibition. Guided tours for groups are possible by appointment only. The project is a cooperation between KUNSTFAKTOR e.V., Art Mama Company Tokyo and Freies Museum Berlin and takes place under the patronage of the Embassy of Japan in Berlin. To–Be is supported by Pola Art Foundation, Japan Foundation and Nomura Foundation.

For this exhibition a catalogue will be published. The entrance is free.

Artists:

Tomohiro Hatori, Tamaki Kawaguchi, Susumu Kinoshita, Tomoko Kofuneko, Masami Kondo, Midori Mitamura, Noritoshi Motoda, Izumi Ooshi, Tatsumi Orimoto, Chieo Senzaki, Tadayuki Shimada, Mio Shirai, Hiroshi Suzuki, Nobuki Yamamoto

Thomas von Arx, Anna Barth, Thomas Dzieran, Kai-Olaf Hesse, Frank Benno Junghanns, Stefan Kreide, Stefan Rueff, Antonio Santin, Ulrike Solbrig, Caro Suerkemper, Peter Unsicker, Juan Varela, Dana Widawski, Regula Zink

www.freies-museum.com

www.kunstfaktor.de/to-be