The work of Japanese artist Yuichiro Tamura is marked by his extensive ‘search’ into the histories and contexts of specific sites and places in which it is presented. Working in a variety of media, such as video, installation, photography and performance, Tamura builds new narratives out of seemingly unconnected fragments.
Tamura’s exhibition, Milky Mountain, plays on the memory of the filming of The Last Samurai in New Plymouth, a momentous event which saw Hollywood descend on the region over the summer of 2003. Today this experience, neither recent nor long in the past, endures in the knowledge and fascination that the film continues to arise in all those who lived through the ‘Samurai Summer’. Presented across four galleries of the Govett-Brewster, the building’s unique architecture bearing witness to its previous life as a picture theatre, Milky Mountain will include videos, archival materials, architectural excavation, and original artwork from a comic book commissioned by Tamura for the exhibition.
Milky Mountain is informed by a mix of narratives – institutional and personal, public and private – that speak to both the history of this event, the Gallery and wider New Plymouth. Employing transformation as a connecting theme, Milky Mountain blurs the lines separating documentary from fiction, and memory from make-believe.
The work of Japanese artist Yuichiro Tamura is marked by his extensive ‘search’ into the histories and contexts of specific sites and places in which it is presented. Working in a variety of media, such as video, installation, photography and performance, Tamura builds new narratives out of seemingly unconnected fragments.
Tamura’s exhibition, Milky Mountain, plays on the memory of the filming of The Last Samurai in New Plymouth, a momentous event which saw Hollywood descend on the region over the summer of 2003. Today this experience, neither recent nor long in the past, endures in the knowledge and fascination that the film continues to arise in all those who lived through the ‘Samurai Summer’. Presented across four galleries of the Govett-Brewster, the building’s unique architecture bearing witness to its previous life as a picture theatre, Milky Mountain will include videos, archival materials, architectural excavation, and original artwork from a comic book commissioned by Tamura for the exhibition.
Milky Mountain is informed by a mix of narratives – institutional and personal, public and private – that speak to both the history of this event, the Gallery and wider New Plymouth. Employing transformation as a connecting theme, Milky Mountain blurs the lines separating documentary from fiction, and memory from make-believe.
