Masako Miki’s New Mythologies offers a reimagining of the Shinto concept of Tsukumogami yōkai: inanimate domestic objects imbued with the spirit of a person or animal. Running at CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions’ new location within Yves Behar’s global design firm Fuseproject“, Miki’s third solo exhibition with the gallery includes bronze tabletop works, watercolour paintings and felt sculptures—a joyful celebration of the “inbetweenness” of identity.
Born in Osaka, Japan, Miki moved to the USA when she was 18 and now lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco. The artist has become known for her anamorphic yōkai sculptures, partly inspired by a residency in Japan incorporating visits to mountainside Shinto shrines. Bouncy, felt-coloured foam sculptures propped up on spindly wooden legs (splayed like the base of an easel), these pieces seem to split the difference between pop-art folly, child’s toy and commercial domestic ornament, suggesting an obscure functional use that can’t be unravelled. At the same time, anthropomorphic details like lips and hands, and their strange, fluid quality, suggests living entities captured in motion.
For New Mythologies, the artist has added bronze to her repertoire of materials, patterned in opalescent automobile paints to create a glassy, reflective finish reminiscent of the uncanny perfection of Jeff Koons’s polished bunnies and balloon dogs. Miki’s work in metal has been conceived across a variety of sizes, and with the patina of untreated bronze offsetting the light-patterns created by the sheen of industrial paint, inviting a range of sensory and emotional reactions. These objects, such as Contemplating Chestnut Shapeshifter, are placed in front of fluorescent watercolours and friezes showing amorphous flora and fauna, nodding to the tradition of Japanese scrolls—in particular the idea of a night-time procession of spirits through the physical realm.
These works bring to mind the legacy of pop art, including Claes Oldenburg’s blown-up sculptures of household objects. But they are shifted beyond the realm of consumer-age irony through their spiritual and cultural connotations. A strong association with Shinto tradition – which, as the artist notes, holds that “everything in the universe is imbued with a spirit…is always more than one singular entity ” – imbues the work with a quality of sacredness, in spite of their shopfront dazzle. The connotations of the objects themselves run a gamut from the religious to the secular – from prayer beads to back scratchers – while their curvaceous, pulsating appearance suggests an animated energy straining at the confines of form.
That quality of metamorphosis also speaks to notions of split and nonbinary identities: across gender, sexuality, ethnicity and, above all for Miki, associations of home. As a young immigrant to the USA, she recalls, “there was this urge for me to finishing becoming someone, but in that process I realised I don’t have to have a fixed identity.” Her ebullient household spirits reflect a sense of identity forged through endless becoming. “A shapeshifter,” she says, “is a reminder that we can shift and we can change. Keep yourself open and evolve.”
Masako Miki, New Mythologies, is on display at CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions until September 25. More information here.
Words: Greg Thomas
Image Credits:
1. Masako Miki, Left: Ichiren-Bozu (Animated prayer beads), 2021. Painted Bronze H 11 in. x W 3 in. x D 3 in. Center: Kuchisake – Onnna (Mouth tear woman), 2021. Painted Bronze H 8 ¼ in. x W 7 in. x D 2.5 in. Right: Nyoijizai (Animated back-scratcher), 2021. Painted Bronze H 8.5 in. x W 6 in. x D 6 in. Courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.
2. Masako Miki, Dango Mushi Ghost (Roly-Polly Insect Shapeshifter), 2021. 35 (H) x 20 (L) x 16 (D) inches. Wool on EPS foam, walnut wood. Photo by John Wilson White. Courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.
3. Masako Miki, Nyoijizai (Animated back-scratcher), 2021. Painted Bronze, H 8.5 in. x W 6 in. x D 6 in.
Photo by John Wilson White. Courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.
4. Masako Miki, Ichiren-Bozu (Animated prayer beads), 2021. Painted Bronze, H 11 in. x W 3 in. x D 3 in.
Photo by John Wilson White. Courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.
5. Masako Miki, Left: Animated Hinoki Tree, 202173 (H) x 23 (D) inches. Wool on EPS foam, walnut wood. Right: Animated Pine Tree, 202136 1/2 (H) x 25 (L) x 16 (D) inches. Wool on EPS foam, cherry wood. Photo by John Wilson White. Courtesy of the artist and CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.
