Aki Sasamoto, Delicate Cycle, 2016. Performance, installation. Duration variable.
* Documentation of September 18, 2016 performance. Video: Adam Khalil
Delicate Cycle is Aki Sasamoto’s first solo exhibition in a U.S. museum. Working at the intersection of performance and sculpture, Sasamoto creates object scenarios out of narratives and actions. For her exhibition in SculptureCenter’s lower level galleries, Sasamoto has created a new body of work in relation to the site. The dung beetle resourcefully rolls its home and food into one mobile unit, an activity that operates as a starting point for Sasamoto’s exhibition. Featuring new sculptural units that similarly roll through the space, once activated by Sasamoto these units become rotating sites that explore neuroses around cleanliness and filth. Rotation reappears in an installation of washing and drying machines modified and periodically used by the artist in her performances.
The exhibition also includes a new video and other sculptures that touch on “base” elements and repression. A cycle of performances articulating the stream of consciousness and associations between the various elements—such as the washing machines, bed sheets, and mobile units—that Sasamoto has incorporated in her sculptures are scheduled throughout the exhibition. Aki Sasamoto (born 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan; lives and works in New York) has been included in group exhibitions such as Roppongi Crossing 2013: Out of Doubt at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2013); A Spoken Word Exhibition at Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2013); A LIKENESS HAS BLISTERS at CCS Bard Hessel Museum, Annandale- on-Hudson, NY (2012); and the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010). Recent performances include Food Rental at the High Line, New York (2015); Wrong Happy Hour/The Last Call at Parasophia, Japan (2015); and Sunny in the Furnace at The Kitchen, New York (2014).