AKI TORII <3 TAD SARE
27 FEBRUARY
2010
Written by
CAMILLE NAVARRO
I must admit, Aki and Tad are friends of mine. They
also happen to be married. They also happen to be a
couple of kick ass artists, concentrating on bending
minds and associating things that don’t usually
mingle as part of their artworks. While they are all
cute and love each other and stuff, collaborating is
off limits. Living together is one thing, working
together is another – both have evolved in different
ways as artists and are too stubborn to bend their
ideas to fit together. In the artistic arena, they
work alone.
LADIES FIRST > AKI TORII
“I work with variety of media. Most of the time, I
use any material as long as it fits with the content
of my work. I am interested in making logic out of
illogic, and recreating a new meaning by combining
all sorts of unassociated meanings. In my work, I
re-analyze a case with a completely unrelated
measuring device/means.” – Aki
Part of the fun of Aki’s work is her childlike
character. If you ever meet her in person, prepare
to be stunned into rosy cheeks. She is cute with all
the cute you can be cute with. Likewise, her
installment entitled Toilet Confession Room makes me
think of kid logic. Often children will watch
something happen, think about it logically, and come
to completely different conclusions than adults,
some of which are ticklishly delightful. Aki’s
Toilet Confession Room is a new twist on religious
confession, minus the priest with bad breath. She
illustrates the technique with very careful
instructions: First, you must think of your sin.
Then you go into the toilet confession room, wash
your hands well (it is a spiritual place, after
all), and write your sin on a piece of toilet paper.
Finally, throw your sin into the toilet and flush.
This releases the sin from your mind and ejects it
into the unknown, where it is no longer your
problem. Ingenious, no?
Aki’s art is not simply a cool poster with
instructions on it, it is the art of action. It is
the art of brain manipulation. Would you ever have
thought of that on your own? One of the best parts
of the whole thing is that it is presented to you as
an instruction manual – “Do this, and it will cause
you to feel this” – which is quite often exactly how
people expect to live. Aki takes this idea and turns
it on situations that we do not usually plug into
the ‘A leads to B’ formula. In this case, ‘write
your sin and flush it down the toilet so you will
receive temporary happiness’ puts two usually
unrelated things together, and Aki fills in the gap
that explains their connection. The result is some
fun brain fireworks, and a chance to reflect on how
we come to our conclusions.
In March, Aki will be participating in a new show at
the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia called
Masturbation. Her new website will soon be found
at
http://www.toriiaki.com
REAL LOVE Film still [2010]
Much of Matt’s work has a feeling of intimacy to it.
He takes very personal moments and filters them
through the camera, making the viewer a part of a
beautiful moment of introspection, or loneliness, or
peace. He really does cut to the heart of his
subject and in the process magically dissolves what
is ugly or unsatisfying about the world we live in.
Every moment is pregnant with possibilities – and as
anyone who has waited anxiously for something can
tell you, anticipation is almost always more
exciting and beautiful than the event itself. How
wonderful to live in that limbo for five or six
minutes and watch the moments unfold!
REAL LOVE Film still [2010]
Besides being ever-busy behind the camera with THE
MASSES, Matt Amato also has some gallery
installments in the works. The one currently on
display at Blythe Projects in Los Angeles is a video
installment entitled Real Love. In this piece, Matt
has taken video clips of his own family and set them
to a lovely, haunting song by Beach House. After
having seen this installment, you feel as if you
have seen your own family in a way you wish they had
been. I left the room moved, feeling like an Amato…
perhaps it is no accident that the artist’s surname
is the Italian word for ‘loved.’
REAL LOVE Film still [2010]
You can see the installment at Blythe
Projects, 5795 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City CA
90034
http://www.wearethemasses.com
http://www.artslant.com/la/artists/show/130694-matt-amato
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