Yoko Inoue
The Missing Peace: Artists and the Dalai Lama
100% of the profits from the Missing Peace Project benefit the Dalai Lama Foundation.
Artists and the Dalai Lama is a multi-media traveling art exhibition that brings together the work of 88 artists from 30 countries (among them Chuck Close, Richard Avedon, Jenny Holzer, Marina Abramovic, Anish Kapoor, Laurie Anderson, Bill Viola). The intention of the project is to shift the world's attention towards peace by exposing millions of people around the world to art inspired by the universal messages of the Dalai Lama.
YOKO INOUE - Untitled, 2006
ceramic; Edition 3/6
(5 bottles)
dimensions vary; 8 inches shortest bottle to 11 inches tallest bottle
$3,000
Statues of the Buddhist deity called Jizo are everywhere in Japan, on country roadsides and city street corners, in temple grounds and cemeteries. Hand-carved or mass-produced, the image is always pretty much the same: a short figure in simple robes with a round shaved head and a soft-featured child's face. Jizo is the protector of travelers and children, which is why his image is often decorated with baby clothes and toys. As Mizuko Jizo he is also guardian of unborn children. And since the legalization of abortion in Japan, memorial parks filled with images of Mizuko Jizo have proliferated, providing revenue for the Buddhist church.
The combination of devotion and commerce is the theme of Inoue's ceramic bottles cast from disposable plastic water containers.
YOKO INOUE - Untitled, 2006
ceramic; (5 bottles)
installation view
Yoko Inoue is a multi-disciplinary artist. In the form of installation, sculpture, public intervention projects and performance art, her work engages issues of globalization, immigrant assimilation, identity and cultural merging. Inoue's large scale installations typically incorporate hand cast ceramic objects derived from mass-produced items found in the multicultural urban market place, reflecting her observations of the commoditization of culture and calling attention to the historical connotations of mundane objects.
Born in 1964 in Kyoto, Japan, she moved to New York in 1990. She earned a MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College, NY and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been shown in New York at the Brooklyn Museum, SculptureCenter, the Rubin Museum, the Bronx Museum and nationally at the Des Moines Art Center, IA, UCLA and Yerba Buena in San Francisco, CA.
She has received awards and grants including the NYFA Fellowship in Sculpture (2003) and subsequently the NYFA Fellowship in Cross-disciplinary & Performative work (2007) from the New York Foundation for the Arts; the Lambent Fellowship (2004-06) from Tides Foundation, Franklin Furnace Award for Performance Art (2005); The Joan Mitchell Foundation's Painters and Sculptors Grant (2005); a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2006); GAPS (Grant for Art in Public Spaces) from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council / 9-11 Fund, Jerome Foundation Travel and Research Grant (2007); and the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2008). Residencies include Skowhegan, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Art Omi, LMCC Workspace, the Center for Book Arts and the Civitella Ranieri Center Residency in Italy and .ekwc (European Ceramic Work Center) in The Netherlands.
YOKO INOUE - Untitled, 2006
ceramic; (5 bottles)
installation view with CHUCK CLOSE - The Dalai Lama, 2005
digital pigment print
YOKO INOUE - Untitled, 2006
digital pigment print on Hannemuhle Satin paper
14.5 by 11 inches image on 20 by 16 inches paper; framed
Edition of 30
$2,200