Go-Betweens: The World Seen through Children
Christian Boltanski » Rineke Dijkstra » Lewis Hine » In Sook Kim » Akino Kondo » Yoshitomo Nara » Jacob Riis » Fiona Tan » Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler » Santeri Tuori » Won Seoung Won » O Zhang » & others
Exhibition: 31 May – 31 Aug 2014
Mori Art Museum
6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku
106-6150 Tokyo
+81-3-57778600
Sun-Thu 10-22 . Fri, Sat 10-24
Different Cultures, the Real World and the Imaginary, Adulthood and Childhood...
"The Power to Live" that Emanates from Children Who Move to and fro across
All Sorts of Borders
Photographer Jacob A. Riis, who documented the lives of poor immigrants in New York during the late 19th century, dubbed immigrant children who performed various tasks in acting as bridges for parents with a poor grasp of English, "go-betweens."
This exhibition focuses on the childhood characteristic of moving freely to and fro across all sorts of boundaries - between different cultures, for instance, or between the real world and the world of imagination – in an attempt to look at the world through a child's eyes. Through images of children as they appear in works by 26 of the world's top artists / artist groups, "Go-Betweens" turns its gaze on politics, culture, family and other aspects of the environment surrounding children, and the problems they face. Taking as key words the likes of play, dreams and memories, it also homes in on the diverse sensate nature of children, their creativity unconstrained by adult convention or the bounds of tradition.
Though children are at the mercy of their environment, at the same time their potential to act as circuit-breakers in stalemate situations may well hold the key to our planet's future. By seeing how children cross borders, we explore the possibilities for a new world in which a greater diversity of values coexist.