Melting Rock, Still Wind
Period: 2023 August 11th (Fri), 12th (Sat), 13rd (Sun),
18th (Fri), 19th (Sat), 20th(Sun)
Hours: 12:00 – 19:00
We are thrilled to announce that MINE, an annex of Yamanaka Suplex, will host Melting Rock, Still Wind, a group exhibition curated by Yindi Chen based in New York, USA. Inspired by the space's name, "MINE," which means "mine" in English and "mountain peak"(峯) in Japanese, the exhibition will feature works in a variety of media by artists whose practice explores the relationship between humans and nature in various locations around the world. We are looking forward to seeing you.
Curatorial Outline:
Melting Rock, Still Wind inquires into the interrelation of the changing and the unchangeable: the seemingly static rock can be reshaped by external forces, and the lingering wind is able to cross multiple areas and eras. The meanings of the name of the exhibition space “MINE”—“peak” in Japanese, the top of a mountain, and “mine” in English, the excavation in the earth—also act as a nexus between things that are above and under the ground, visible and unseen.
Featuring photography, sculpture, sound pieces, and video installations, the exhibition brings artists from different lands to share their ongoing research on landscapes where human and natural forces intertwine with one another and become indiscernible. Following lava, minerals, microbes, and abandoned shelters, the artists trace overlooked matters and untold narratives and search for haunting pasts that stay in the remains of human extraction and reconstruction of the Earth.
The story in Shuyi Cao’s work traverses different spatial and temporal scales, revealing the lives affected by technology operating on geological strata. In Andrea Galano Toro’s video, we travel with a microbe from the Atacama desert to our laptop, speculating the connections between mining, dictatorship, and human relations to earth. The artist collective Alchemyverse records sound and vibrations in lava, water, and bunkers to create haptic encounters that transmit unheard frequencies. Kees van Leeuwen documents his field visits to nuclear bunkers in Europe and explores the interactions between artificial and natural processes.
The artists attempt to think and feel with more-than-human substances, questioning the division of life and nonlife and looking for the possibilities of knowing—to move away from the humancentric perspective and probe the entanglements of histories, geopolitics, and ecologies.
Yindi Chen, curator
Melting Rock, Still Wind
Period: 2023 August 11th (Fri) – August 20th(Sun)(Open on only Friday, Saturday and Sunday)
Hours: 12:00 – 19:00
Venue: Yamanaka Suplex annex MINE
Admission: Free
About the Artists and Curator
Alchemyverse was founded by artists Bicheng Liang and Yixuan in New York. The duo began their collaboration at the MFA program at Columbia University. Bicheng Liang received his BFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, China. Yixuan received her BA from University of California, San Diego. They combine their respective knowledge bases and skills in print-making and sound studies, with intensive field research to form their collaborative practice. Select exhibitions include Asia Art Archive in America, New York; The Bishop Museum, Honolulu; Praise Shadows Gallery, Brookline, MA, and among others. Residencies include LMCC Governors Island, New York; Desert 23°S, La Wayaka Current, Chile; AAA-A Zine Residency, Brooklyn; and the Rabbit Island Residency, Lake Superior, Michigan. Currently, they are in residence at the International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn.
Vanishing Points, 2021-2022.
Rocks, ceramics, bronze, dead plants, living moss, sand, transparency, films, cyanotypes, scores, 3D carved photo, turntable, trace light box, digital projectors, lamps, and other mixed media.
Messa in Luce, 2022-23.
Pit-fired wild clay sonified by bone conducting transmitters, solar irradiances on May 16th from 11:00 to 16:00 (kW/m2), earth substrates, field recordings of Rio San Pedro and Mina Victoria, NASA recordings of solar activities, and other mixed media.
Andrea Galano Toro was born in Spain, raised in Chile, and currently lives in Berlin. She holds a bachelor's degree in Graphic design from the ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem NL and will start her Master’s degree in Audiovisual design at BAU in Barcelona. Andrea’s practice explores storytelling as a gesture to activate, enchant, and speculate the voices of elements, landscapes, and more-than-human characters, which re-configure heteronormative storytelling in many ways. She has exhibited at W139 in the Sonic Acts Biennale (Amsterdam, 2022) and is currently working on a project at Museo del Hongo (Chile). Andrea cofounded Cruda Collective with Laila Saber Rodriguez and did experimental workshops and performative readings workshops at AKI, ArtEZ Theater, Extrapool, and RADIUS in the Netherlands and the Seminar Planetary Embodiment at Universität der Künste Berlin. Andrea is a former resident of Onsite (Berlin, 2022) and Valley of the Possible (Araucanía- Wallmapu, 2022).
De allá pa acá, 2021. One channel video with sound.
Living Riddles, 2023. One channel video with sound.
Shuyi Cao is a New York-based artist whose practice explores alchemical approaches to object making and knowledge osmosis. Through archeological speculation and ecological fiction, she contemplates the porous plurality of relations between sciences, technocultures, mythologies, and cosmologies. Her multi-medium sculptures and installation synthesize various organic and inorganic materials, natural and artificial processes. Combining hand-crafted and digital artifacts, moving images, and sounds, the assemblage suggests heterogeneous material and technological temporalities. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Today Art Museum, Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Long March Space, Para Site Hong Kong, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Gallery Kunming, Chronus Art Center (CAC), Banff Centre for the Arts, UrbanGlass NY, Chambers Fine Art, Pratt Institute, A.I.R. 13th Biennale, among others. She received a Bachelor of Laws, an M.A. in Public Administration from Fudan University in Shanghai, and an M.F.A. in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, New York.
A Vast Shimmer Spans All, 2022. One channel video with sound.
Of Shape Offshore, 2023.
Stoneware, seashell fragments, barnacles, porcelain, glass, sand, gravels, plastic, rubber, paper, coral, petrified leather, horsebone, fish bones, rusted socket, whale earbone
Kees van Leeuwen (b. 1986, Netherlands) currently lives and works in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Van Leeuwen works in sculptures and installations that examines human interactions with institutional architectural spaces—how spatiality pertains to a physical experience and that is also influenced by the sociological narratives projected into the site. He has spent years researching Cold War nuclear shelters of which structures challenge everyday perceptions of space. His work has been exhibited at Art Rotterdam (NL), De Compagnie (NL), Matsura Historical Museum (JP), CAVE-AYUMIGALLERY (JP), and among others.
Untitled (Hemcentrale), 2021. Photograph.
Ceremony for Space, 2021. Concrete, wood, sand.
Yindi Chen is a learner of curating and art history, currently living in New York and working here and there. Her research focuses on the entanglements of sciences and mythologies, histories and fabulations. She has published her writings on The Art Newspaper China and C-print (Stokolm), participated in publication projects of Note on Hapticity collective (Netherlands), curated exhibitions at Tutu gallery, Subtitled, and among other art spaces in New York. She received her B.A. from the University of York, UK and M.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York.
Artist: Alchemyverse, Andrea Galano Toro, Shuyi Cao, Kees van Leeuwen
Curator: Yindi Chen
Graphic Design: Sarah Tan
Translation: Nicholas J. Locke, Tristan Shan
Art handling: Kotaro Tategami
Organizer: Yamanaka Suplex
Co-organizer: NANEI ART PROJECT
Special thanks: CAVE-AYUMIGALLERY
Grant: City of Osaka Subsidy for Artistic Projects and Activities, Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation