At Snow Contemporary, Tokyo, manuscripts and an experimental VR experience invite viewers to engage with the 2021-22 piece ‘Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes.’

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What You Need to Know: Japanese artist Yosuke Amemiya (b. 1975) has a multimedia artistic practice that spans painting, sculpture, installation, and performance—and often a combination of these within the same piece. The everyday and human connection are core themes that Amemiya consistently returns to in his work; representations of the quotidian are shown with slight deviations to heighten awareness, both of the self and those around us. In 2021, Amemiya created Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes, a site-specific multimedia installation shown at the Art-Reborn Festival in Ishinomaki, Japan. Though the installation cannot be physically recreated, it is still the focus of Amemiya’s current solo show, “Certainly, Chawan (a bowl) and Wanchan (doggy) are completely different things, but some days not so much,” at Snow Contemporary, Tokyo. The exhibition features 30 of Amemiya’s illustrated manuscripts for Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes, as well as a special VR installation that allows viewers to experience the piece virtually.

Why We Like It: As is common in Amemiya’s practice, Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes is a multilayered work both materially and conceptually. Created for the first edition of the Reborn-Art Festival, it marked the 10th anniversary of the East Japan Earthquake as well as the one-year mark of the Covid-19 outbreak. The work contemplates both the past and the future through the lens of these two major events, while making meta-references to other works in Amemiya’s oeuvre. The complex themes and ideas in Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes are recorded in manuscripts on display, which are at once notes and musings on the production of the piece as well as whimsical and creative illustrations—and often the writing and drawing cannot be extracted from the another. And although the VR viewing of Ishinomaki Thirteen Minutes does not allow viewers the exact experience of the site-specific work, it offers a much broader audience the opportunity to engage with a new iteration of the piece, connecting them with the emotional and intellectual elements of the work.

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